One of the most popular hotel booking sites is Agoda, whose forte is offering hotel accommodations around Asia. They also offer hotel accommodations from other destinations as well, if you were wondering. With thousands of hotels from more than 40 countries listed, this is definitely one of the fastest growing online hotel booking websites in the industry. More than that, they also provide a simple, smooth browsing experience that some of the other booking websites lack, as well as a host of other great features that all combine to make this one of the most promising places where you can go to find the right hotel accommodations for your trip.

PROS

 CONS

1. Lacks Some Advanced Filtering Options: – While Agoda has some filtering options that allow you to easily narrow down your search, it is lacking the options to filter the results that include accessibility features for the disabled. While the amount of people without any disability far outweighs those that have, there are still a lot of people out there that would definitely appreciate and benefit from such a feature.
2. Rewards System Mechanics and Presence Not Immediately Apparent: – Agoda has a great rewards system that allows users to earn points when they book through the site, which they can redeem instantly for bookings. Too bad this offering is poorly represented or advertised in their website. There are virtually no readily apparent indication whatsoever that this particular hotel booking website has such a rewards system in place and you would have to dig a little bit deeper just to see that they do, in fact, have one. They should have advertised this feature from the very beginning so that every user can be made aware of its existence.

Go Mobile

If you are the type of person that is constantly on the go, or if you simply can’t find the time to sit down in front of a computer, Agoda provides its users a mobile app that can make searching for hotel accommodations quickly and quite easily. Available for iOS, Android, and even Windows Phones, the app allows users to search for and book more than 600,000 hotels worldwide, easily find hotels near you, wherever you are, and, for those who are already in a middle of their travels, find your way back to your hotel with the help of interactive maps. The mobile app is incredibly handy and is a great way to make searching for hotels a much more engaging, not to mention convenient affair.

Ease of Use & Features

Similar to most hotel booking websites, you can immediately search for hotels the moment you land on Agoda’s front page. What is rather unique, and certainly pleasant, about this website is the fact that the overall design and layout is rather simple, clean, and free from clutter. The focus is on getting you to immediately search for hotels, and not in trying to catch your attention with three, four or even five different sections all at once. That said, while they do have another section below the front page’s search tool which displays the top destinations, this section does not distract nor does it feel like clutter.

As for browsing hotels, you can narrow down your searches to those that are the most relevant to your preferences with the help of numerous filtering options. You can choose to filter results by price per night, star rating, area, accommodation type, hotel facilities (aka amenities), review score, and hotel chain & brands. Furthermore, you can also filter by hotels that contain specific names, allowing you to view hotels that have “Hilton” in their property names, for example. Should you want to reorganize the results so that the topmost reflects the hotels that are most in line with your preferences, you can sort them by Agoda Recommended, which, as the name suggests, prioritizes those recommended by the website itself, by hotel name, by star rating (either 5-1 or 1-5), by price (high to low, low to high, and by Agoda Secret Deals), as well as by review score.

When you arrive to any one of Agoda’s hotel profile pages, you will be treated with a very detailed overview of all that the hotel can offer you and more. The profile page includes the hotel’s complete address, complete with a map location, a succinct description of the hotel, lots of interior and exterior photos of the property, the general area where the hotel is situated, the total number of rooms it has, the available rooms, their corresponding room rates, and detailed descriptions per room type, every amenity available, hotel policies, the hotel’s restaurants (if any), detailed customer scores and reviews, as well as other useful info such as check in and check out times, room voltage, and even the estimated travel time to the nearest airport. You can also see the things that customers liked about the hotel, like the nearest transport, distance to airport, and even the top attractions in the area.

Speaking of attractions, Agoda also offers a way for users to easily find nearby points of interest that can be found in and around the city where your hotel is. They provide a page dedicated to listing all the nearest attractions in and around the city, such as amusement and theme parks, music venues, bars, casinos, public parks, famous buildings, spas, and many, many more. You can also view a detailed map that shows you the nearest alternative hotels, landmarks, and airports. This allows you to quickly find potential places to visit when you are plotting out your itinerary.

Customer Support

Agoda offers 24/7 mutlilingual customer support, and you can choose to contact them either by phone or by email. They also give you a way that lets you easily manage your booking so you can amend, cancel or simply check the status of your booking all on your own. Finally, they also provide a really comprehensive FAQ section that should prove quite informative to those who wish to learn the ins and outs of this particular hotel booking website.

Agoda Review – Conclusion

Agoda is one of the better hotel booking websites out there right now. Almost all of the usual features that you can find in most booking services can be found here, while leaving the negative aspects of such sites, like a cluttered layout, out the door. While it does not have filtering options for accessibility features for the disabled and its rewards system is not advertised, it is one of the few hotel booking sites that is actually quite pleasant to use due to its simple and clean approach. If you want a solid online booking site for your next hotel stay, do check out Agoda. You will definitely not regret it. Visit Agoda HERE