Agoda.com is an online travel agency that can help you book hotels, resorts, bed and breakfasts, and other types of accommodations. The company was started in Singapore in the 1990s, but Priceline Group, the company that owns Priceline.com, bought it in 2007.

In addition to its website, Agoda can help you book travel accommodations through its mobile apps. It is available in over 38 languages and has offices all over the world.

Top Features of Agoda

The explosion of travel websites has made it increasingly easy for people to book hotel rooms at discounted prices. A lot of those websites, however, don’t focus on specific areas of travel. Instead, they want you to bundle all of your services before you can get any significant discounts. I find that a little annoying since I don’t always need to fly or rent a car. If I’m just traveling a few hours away for business, I can take my own car. I just need a decent place to stay.

Agoda appeals to me because it does concentrate on helping people find accommodations. I don’t have to bundle flights with hotel rooms to get a good discount. Everything on the site is exactly what it claims to be. I don’t like feeling pushed into buying things I don’t want. Agoda doesn’t do that, and I appreciate them for taking that stance.

Another thing I like a lot about Agoda is that it offers more than just your typical hotel and motel rooms. More often than not, I only need a small place to crash for the night. As long as the room is quiet, clean, and comfortable, I’m happy. Really, I only need to show up at the morning’s meeting looking refreshed.

There are times, though, when I need a lot more than that. For instance, I recently had to book accommodations for some clients of mine. They were involved in a business deal I was working on, so they wanted to come along to the meeting.

I did not want to put my clients in some dinky hotel room. I needed them to feel that I was taking good care of them. That way, they would have positive things to say about me and they would be more likely to support me during negotiations. I thought that setting them up in a nice place would make the entire experience better.

By using Agoda, I found that I didn’t have to rely on hotels. I could book some really nice places that aren’t typical for business travelers. I decided to book a couple villas on the beach. I kept it secret until we arrived. My clients couldn’t believe how nice it was. Suddenly, this business trip started to feel more like a vacation. They had an absolute blast. I don’t think it would have worked out that way had I not found those villas on Agoda.

What my clients didn’t know is that those Agoda were really cheap. I would have spent a similar amount putting them in a hotel. Of course, to them it seemed like I had really treated them to something special. I guess I had, but I didn’t have to spend a lot of money doing it.

Agoda Prices

Since Agoda offers such diverse accommodations that the prices are all over the place. That’s what you would expect when you’re using a website that lets you book a room at a motel while also offering rooms at some of the world’s nicest resorts.

Regardless of what kind of place you want to book, though, you will get some kind of discount by using Agoda. Now, it is really hard to say exactly what that discount will look like. There are a lot of factors involved. For instance, you can usually get the cheapest prices by booking rooms within a few days of your stay.

Hotels and resorts don’t want to leave any of their rooms empty. An empty room means they aren’t making as much money as they could. They try to prevent this by giving Agoda really good deals for rooms that they’re desperate to book.

That doesn’t mean, however, that you have to make all of your travel plans at the last minute. You can reserve a room weeks or months in advance. Doing that, however, usually means that you will spend a little more money. If you know that you have to be in a specific place on a specific date, though, that’s what you have to do. At least Agoda will help you save a few dollars while streamlining the reservation process.

Criticism of Agoda

When I was preparing to write this review, I couldn’t even imagine what kind of criticism someone would have about Agoda. I mean, the site does exactly what it says it is supposed to do.

Since I was curious to see what other people think, I did a little extra research and read reviews written by other people. Nearly all of them were positive. Most of them say things similar to what I have written here.

I did, however, find one negative review.

I want to make it clear that the following has not happened to me. I only include it because I want my review to be as fair and balanced as possible. I don’t completely believe what this other reviewer wrote, but I can’t 100 percent say that he made it up. Regardless, I’ll recap his review and you can make up your own mind.

In this person’s review, he complained that Agoda did not refund him his money even after he found a better deal at the same hotel. According to Agoda’s policies, this person should get his money back so he could take advantage of the better deal. The reviewer claims that this did not happen. He seemed pretty upset.

Now that I’ve given you the basics of his complaint, I’ll tell you what I think happened. He says in his review that he booked a hotel room four months in advance. When he found a better deal shortly before leaving on his trip, he tried to get a refund from Agoda.

I think you have to be a bit dimwitted to think that this is in line with Agoda’s refund policy. You can’t expect a last-minute reservation to cost the same as a reservation you made four months ago. Prices go down as hotels get desperate to fill rooms. Everyone knows that. Agoda isn’t responsible for competing with prices that are posted four months apart. It would only have to refund his money if he found a cheaper price around the same date that he make his reservation with Agoda.

I think there’s a very good reason that his was the only negative review that I could find. And I don’t think that reason has anything to do with Agoda.

Agoda Customer Support

Any question I’ve ever had has been addressed on Agoda’s FAQ page. If you can’t find the answer to your question there, then you can send the company an email. It says that responses go out within 24 hours.

You can also make a phone call to Agoda. The customer service center is open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. The number, though, is international, which could mean that you have to pay some charges. If you really need to contact customer service, it sounds easier and cheaper to send an email.

Pros of Using Agoda

• Large variety of hotels, motels, villas, and other accommodations
• Great prices
• Last-minute deals
• Streamlined reservation process


• Website makes comparison shopping easy

Cons of Using Agoda

• I can’t think of any legitimate cons of using Agoda

Conclusion

With so many travel websites these days, you have more than enough options. Most of the sites that I have used have worked pretty well. Realistically, most of them offer similar services. The thing that matters most is whether those sites have access to a wide range of accommodations and whether they can give you the lowest possible prices.

In my experience, Agoda is good at those things. I have never had a reservation fall through on me. I have always felt that Agoda offered excellent services that makes it easy for people to book rooms all over the world.

Since there are so many travel websites, it’s possible that one of them will fit your needs better than Agoda can. For me, Agoda is pretty close to perfect. I’m looking for a straightforward service that saves me money and time. That’s exactly what I get from Agoda.

So, while I definitely recommend using Agoda, I also recommend checking out the competition. Just because Agoda works well for me, doesn’t necessarily mean that it is the right option for you. Before you start searching for other sites, though, you should take a few minutes to visit Agoda. There is a very good chance that you will find exactly what you need.