Travelocity Versus Hotwire

In 2013, Travelocity announced it would start using Expedia to power its website. By 2015, Expedia had purchased Travelocity. Although Expedia owns Travelocity, they operate as independent companies. If you visit both websites, though, you will find numerous similarities. In fact, the homepage used by Travelocity looks almost exactly like the Expedia homepage. Expedia also owns or works with Hotwire Group, trivago, Hotels.com, Orbitz and several other travel brands.

How Does Travelocity Work?

Travelocity has a simple user interface that makes it easy for you to find low prices on the travel services and accommodations you need. When you visit the Travelocity website, you get to choose the type of service that interests you. You can search for flights, hotel rooms, car rentals and cruises. You can also choose packages that lower the overall cost of buying two or more services. For instance, you can save up to $588 by booking your flight and hotel room at the same time.

If you’re searching for flights, you enter your origin and destination cities, your departing and returning dates, and how many people will travel with you. The search gives you a comprehensive list of flight options that includes each one’s cost, number of stops, number of layovers and total travel time.

Searching for a hotel works in much the same way, except you do not have to enter your origin city. When you get your list of hotels, you can organize them by price, location and ranking. You can find more information about the rooms and hotels by clicking on them. Clicking an item will show you the hotel’s amenities, location, services and other features of importance, which will help you choose a place to stay.

Once you find options you like, you add them to your cart. Navigate to the cart, provide your payment information, and receive a confirmation email for the services purchased.

What Makes Travelocity Stand Out?

Travelocity helps you plan multi-city trips. For instance, if you have an upcoming trip that will take you to Dallas, San Diego and Las Vegas, you can schedule flights to each city in succession. You can also find hotel rooms in each city. Instead of treating each leg of the trip like an independent journey, Travelocity understands how to schedule long trips with several sections.

Since Travelocity has so much in common with other brands owned by Expedia, you may not feel like the website has many stand-out features. It’s true that Travelocity and Expedia feel similar, but you can still find unique benefits by using Travelocity. For instance, you get $25 off your first hotel booking when you download the Travelocity app.

Common Reviews of Travelocity

For the most part, people appreciate what Travelocity does. Scheduling business trips and vacations was much more difficult in the early 1990s: you either had to deal directly with airlines or use a travel agent. As you can probably imagine, these options didn’t make travel cheaper. Instead, travelers had to search hard for the smallest discounts.

Travelocity makes it easy to compare the cost and quality of travel services. Most people understand that Travelocity’s convenience makes it a great company to use. Others don’t seem to understand that Travelocity provides a useful, but limited service.

Negative reviews about Travelocity often say the company has poor customer service. Customer service matters a lot to people while they’re traveling. If you run into a problem, experiencing bad customer service could mean you don’t have a place in which to spend the night. Due to this, it’s easy to understand why some travelers give Travelocity such bad reviews.

If travelers stopped to think about what Travelocity does, though, many of them would realize that their complaints don’t hold water. Travelocity does some things very well. It can help you get a great deal on a flight or a hotel room. It can even book the accommodations for you. Travelocity cannot, however, control what other companies do.

If you have a bad experience with American Airlines, it doesn’t make sense to blame Travelocity because you purchased your ticket through the website.

There are legitimate complaints about Travelocity, but most of the negative reviews sound like problems outside of the company’s control.

Can I Get Deals on the Travelocity Site?

Travelocity is designed to help you find good deals. The Travelocity homepage even has a tab for Travel Deals. Here, you’ll find daily and weekly travel deals that include options like “flight and hotel deals under $400,” “kids stay or eat free” when you buy select travel packages and “save up to 45% on summer hotel deals.”

You can also find trip deals to specific cities like Atlanta, Las Vegas and Orlando. If you check this section of the website regularly, you will find spectacular deals that help you save money on travel. You don’t have to look for good deals to get them, though. You automatically save 10% when you become a Travelocity member.

Deals can come and go quickly, so you need to check Travelocity’s website regularly to catch the best deals. With enough effort, you could save 50% or more on a flight and hotel room in a city you’ve always wanted to visit.