Booking through an online travel agent can save you serious money on flights, hotels and bundles — but with dozens of OTAs competing for your card details, which ones actually deliver? A recent rundown of Trustpilot scores puts one platform well ahead of the pack and one household name embarrassingly behind.

The standout is Trip.com, scoring 4.4 out of 5 across a hefty 203,000 reviews. Users praise its competitive flight and hotel prices, transparent fees, and an interface that makes comparing deals painless. The main gripe? Price surges that can appear at the checkout stage, so it's worth watching the final total before you commit.

FlightHub follows at 4.0/5 from 130,000 reviews, with cheap fares listed clearly and some flexible booking options — though support wait times and extra fees draw complaints. Whimstay, a smaller platform specialising in last-minute Airbnb and Vrbo deals, actually posts the highest score at 4.5/5, but from only 557 reviews. Its strict cancellation policies are the catch, which makes sense given the last-minute nature of its inventory.

Mid-table reads like a who's-who of travel booking. Expedia scores 3.2/5 (19k reviews) — easy to use, good for flight-and-hotel packages, but let down by reservations that sometimes never reach the hotel and surprise fees at check-in. Hotels.com lands at 3.0/5 with realistic property photos and solid rates, but vague cancellation terms trip people up. Agoda (2.8/5, 52k reviews) and Priceline (2.4/5, 97k reviews) both get dinged for unresponsive support, with Priceline also criticised for hidden local taxes and service charges that inflate the final bill.

Then there's the shocker: Booking.com, one of the world's biggest OTAs, sits at a dismal 1.4/5 from 127,000 reviews. Complaints centre on last-minute cancellations, double bookings and reservations that vanish — plus phishing scams where fraudsters impersonate the site. Tripadvisor fares badly too at 1.8/5, with cancelled tours and hard-to-reach support among the complaints.

A few caveats worth keeping in mind. These scores were pulled in September 2026, and they can shift. Trustpilot isn't flawless either — it's an open forum, though it does weight verified purchases more heavily than anonymous rants. And a low score doesn't automatically disqualify a platform: even the article's own author has booked happily with Booking.com for a decade despite its poor rating. Volume matters as well; a 4.5 from 557 reviews is impressive, but a 4.4 from 203,000 is arguably more telling.

So who is this for? Anyone who books through OTAs to save money or chase a specific route. The practical takeaway: cross-check scores on Trustpilot, Google Reviews and the Better Business Bureau before committing, screenshot your confirmation, and reconfirm directly with the hotel or airline — especially when booking through a platform known for reservations going missing.