trivago vs. KAYAK for finding hotel deals

How trivago and KAYAK work

trivago and KAYAK are both metasearch sites. You enter where and when you’re going, and they pull prices from online travel agencies, hotel chains and other sellers into one list. Neither sells most rooms itself: you click an offer and usually pay on the seller’s site, which then holds your reservation.

Both make money from the sellers, not from you. trivago’s 2025 annual report says it earns cost per click and cost per acquisition fees, and that advertisers paying higher bids generally get better placement. KAYAK’s terms say providers may pay it when you click through or book, and Booking Holdings reports that KAYAK also earns from advertising placements.

The main difference is scope. trivago is built around lodging: hotels, hostels, B&Bs and vacation rentals. KAYAK covers flights, hotels, vacation rentals, rental cars and packages, plus trip planning tools like flight status alerts and an itinerary organizer in its app.

Both also offer a way to book without leaving the site for some offers. trivago’s Book & Go runs through its trivago DEALS business, acquired in July 2025. KAYAK says some bookings are completed on its site but are still fulfilled by a third party provider, which also handles customer service.

Who owns them, and why it matters

The two sit on opposite sides of the online travel business. Expedia Group controls trivago, holding shares worth 59.2% of its issued shares and 83.9% of its voting power. KAYAK is one of the main brands of Booking Holdings, alongside Booking.com, Priceline and Agoda.

That doesn’t mean either one hides its rival’s prices. trivago’s 2025 filing says Booking Holdings brands paid 40% of its referral revenue and Expedia Group brands paid 34%, so Booking.com and Expedia offers both show up there. KAYAK also lists offers from many outside agencies and hotel sites.

What it does mean is that ranking on each site reflects what sellers pay as well as price. In 2022 Australia’s Federal Court ordered trivago to pay about $31.2 million (A$44.7 million) after finding it implied it highlighted the cheapest rates when its rankings leaned heavily on which site paid the highest click fee. We found no comparable penalty against KAYAK.

Because different sellers bid on each platform, the same hotel can show a different top offer on each. Running a search on both takes a minute and is a simple way to check you’re seeing the lowest total.

For hotels: which one finds better deals?

Neither site guarantees the lowest price, and neither publishes data comparing its hotel prices with the other’s. What you can compare is how each helps you search:

• trivago lists more than 7.0 million hotels and other stays in over 190 countries. Its app combines guest ratings from several booking sites into one score, lets you compare saved hotels side by side, shows mobile only rates and sends price drop alerts for hotels you save.
• KAYAK doesn’t publish a property count. It offers filters such as free cancellation, mobile only rates from select hotels, and Price Alerts that track a hotel search daily or in real time.

For a single hotel stay, both do the job. The habits that save money are the same on either site: open the full list of offers rather than the highlighted one, compare the same room and cancellation terms, check the hotel’s own site, and confirm the total with taxes and fees on the checkout page. In the US, mandatory hotel fees such as resort fees must now be included in the advertised total under the FTC fee rule.

Flights, cars and full trips

This is where KAYAK pulls ahead. trivago doesn’t search flights or rental cars. KAYAK does, with tools built for airfare:

• Price Alerts track a flight, hotel or car search and notify you of changes. You can choose real time alerts that trigger on a price move of about 10%.
• Price Forecast predicts whether a round trip fare will rise or fall over the next seven days and shows a confidence level. KAYAK says it is not guaranteed.
• Hacker Fares combine two one way tickets, sometimes on different airlines, into a cheaper round trip. Each ticket has its own rules, so a delay or cancellation on one isn’t covered by the other airline.

KAYAK’s app also tracks flight status and gate changes, stores trip confirmations for offline use, and includes a bag measuring tool. If you’re booking a flight and a hotel for the same trip, KAYAK lets you do the price research in one place.

Support when something goes wrong

With both sites, the seller you paid owns the reservation. KAYAK’s terms say it is not a party to your booking and can’t process refunds, changes or cancellations. trivago’s help center says the same about bookings made on other sites. So the quality of help you get depends mostly on which seller you choose.

Customer reviews still differ. KAYAK rates 4.1 out of 5 on Trustpilot from 4,909 reviews and replies to 93% of negative ones; the BBB rates it A- with 35 complaints in three years. trivago rates 3.8 from about 2,370 reviews, 38% of them one star, with no replies to negative reviews, and we found no BBB profile for it. Common complaints on both: final prices higher than shown in search and sellers that are hard to reach.

To limit problems, favor offers sold by the hotel itself or a large, well known agency, read the cancellation terms before paying, and keep your confirmation email, since it names the company to contact.