The Site: TripAdvisor.com
- TripAdvisor contains over 30 million searchable travel reviews and ratings, all submitted by real travelers
- Traveler reviews of hotels and destination spots, such as restaurants and attractions
- Ability to rank hotels based on best rating or average price, so you can easily compare hotels in your price range
- Click the “Check Rates” button on TripAdvisor to instantly open up searches for the selected hotel on Hotels.com, Priceline.com, Orbitz.com and Expedia.com
- Flight search engine compares 1000′s of flight itineraries
- Travel forums
- Vacation rental search engine
- Free downloadable destination travel guides
- Traveler’s Choice listing of the Top 10 as reviewed by travelers for several categories, such as bargain hotels, family hotels, B & B’s and inns, all-inclusive resorts, and the trendiest hotels
- Get trip ideas based on the type of trip you want to take, such as adventure vacations, family vacations, or casino vacations
The Good:
TripAdvisor is undoubtedly our favorite online travel resource for hotels. Literally every time we book a hotel, we check the hotels rating, reviews and pictures on TripAdvisor before it is booked. It’s so easy to compare hotel reviews on TripAdvisor that there is no reason not to use this site on a regular basis, we think it’s utterly awesome. TripAdvisor also provides you with the hotels average pricing and quick links to booking sites so that you may book the best rated hotels quickly. We still recommend that you book the hotel directly on the hotels own website for a multitude of reasons, but not until after you have checked the traveler reviews on TripAdvisor.
TripAdvisor’s flight search engine is also fantastic, and on par with Kayak’s flight search engine. TripAdvisor also has a nice baggage fees estimator on their flight search engine, which is great to have as airline fees have been climbing in recent months.
The Bad:
The folks over at TripAdvisor actually outed themselves a couple years back and admitted that it is possible that some of the hotel reviews and ratings are fake. TripAdvisor began placing disclaimers in a red box next to a few hotel reviews that are suspicious, stating that the the specific hotel reviews may be “manipulated”. This has the conspiracy theory community reeling, with several claiming that TripAdvisor is a scam. We think that it was very smart on TripAdvisors part to provide these disclaimers, after all, with over 30 million hotel reviews on their site it is hard to believe that none of them are fake. We would not go as far as to call TripAdvisor a scam, because the vast majority of the reviews on the site are authentic. When in doubt, check other sources, such as Yelp. Just type the name of the hotel with the word “reviews” into Google to find reviews from additional sources. Ironically, TripAdvisor has a blog entitled “We Are Not Making This Up“. Really? That just made us laugh.
We are disappointed that TripAdvisor is not a travel booking agent, which means that you cannot book a hotel or vacation from them. They simply direct you as to where to go to book their best rated hotels or vacation ideas. We feel like TripAdvisor may be missing out on a great opportunity here and perhaps they will offer on-site hotel and vacations booking in the future. Nonetheless, they have many travel booking sites as partners and link you to them for quick booking.
The Fees *:
TripAdvisor is free to use and does not book travel so they have no fees as far as we can tell. *Based solely on research done by TravelSiteCritic.com, these figures may be inaccurate and are subject to change. Double check before you buy.
The Deals:
NEW YORK CITY – Find Deals, Compare Rates, and Read Hotel Reviews on TripAdvisor
CARIBBEAN – Find Deals, Compare Rates, & Read Hotel Reviews on TripAdvisor
PARIS – Find Deals, Compare Rates, and Read Hotel Reviews on TripAdvisor
LAS VEGAS - Find Deals, Compare Rates, and Read Hotel Reviews on TripAdvisor
LONDON - Find Deals, Compare Rates, and Read Hotel Reviews on TripAdvisor
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