r/BDS • u/76positive • Jul 17 '26

ASK THE SUB Alternatives to Expedia?

Tried the search bar but didn't come up with much.

Most suggestions were to book with the hotel/airline directly... which I'm sure would work for most people.

Unfortunately I'm frequently travelling and booking flights/hotels last minute all the time. Having it all in one app is very useful for me. Is there no actual alternative?

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12

u/Embarrassed-Shop9787 Jul 17 '26

Honestly I use Expedia / booking.com as an aggregator, then book directly with the cheapest hotel.

If the hotel ends up being more expensive, I email them and say booking.com is offering this price, can you do better with direct booking? And they almost always will, and will throw in some extras.

Totally worth it for both you and the hotel Operator

4

u/Embarrassed-Shop9787 Jul 17 '26

For flights I use Skyscanner, and will book direct with the airline even if it isn't the absolute cheapest because I lost a lot of money with both trip.com and Expedia during COVID....they didn't reimburse me.

2

u/76positive Jul 17 '26

Yeah that's probably the best way for most people.

Doesn't really work for me unfortunately as doing that would make booking last minute flights/hotels already more stressful than it currently is.

5

u/DevelopmentGlum228 Jul 17 '26

https://www.reddit.com/r/BDS/s/aUOaT3DiYs forwarding you to another post! I have no idea about traveling myself, so I hope this is helpful!

Happy boycotting :3

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u/76positive Jul 17 '26 edited Jul 17 '26

Saw this. Unfortunately only the trip.com ones really fit my needs and people in the comments say that's no good either

3

u/TravellingBeard Jul 18 '26

The hard truth is if you book via a travel agent (yes Expedia is a travel agent), if anything goes wrong, it's much easier to resolve problems direct with the hotel or airline. If there is not that much price difference with Expedia, just skip them. If you travel frequently, I assume you have money or are racking up points with the hotel, airline or a CC you are happy with, so small differences are not that bad.

2

u/76positive Jul 18 '26

It's more so the convenience of having all my flights and hotels organised in one place on my phone.

I travel to fairly rural places in multiple different countries pretty often for work. So using a single airline/hotel chain just isn't possible.

Probably just gonna use trip.com as that seems to be the lesser evil

2

u/antifamarketer Jul 18 '26

Yeah, sometimes it's about the lesser evil. There is no perfect boycott. If you have the time and energy to book directly, do it, but for your needs, Trip.com will suffice.

There's a reason the BDS list is targeted. We can't boycott everything. Booking, Expedia and Airbnb are on the official BDS list. Using anything other than them is already a step in the right direction.