For guests
Direct Booking Champions
If a badge brought you here, the site you came from either takes bookings on its own website or champions the idea. Here’s what booking direct means for guests.
- It’s usually cheaper. Platforms take around 15% of every booking, and it’s baked into the price you pay, either as a visible service fee or a higher nightly rate. When you book direct, most hosts pass some or all of that saving on to you.
- You deal with the actual human. Requests, early check-ins, questions about the boiler. Straight to the person with the keys instead of a call centre reading a script.
- Pay properly and keep proof. A legitimate direct booking still goes through a card processor such as Stripe, so you keep the normal card protections. Pay by card. If a host you found five minutes ago wants an untraceable bank transfer, walk away.
- Check who you’re paying. Reviews on Google, a real address, a phone number that answers. The same diligence you’d apply to any small business, and most hosts pass it easily.
Platforms are convenient and nobody is telling you to stop using them. But once you’ve found a place you trust, especially one you’ve stayed at before, booking direct is better for you and much better for the host.
The list
Sites flying the badge
Book them direct. Every site in this group takes bookings on its own website.
Championing the movement. Platforms, writers and communities pushing direct bookings forward.
Take direct bookings, or spend your energy promoting them? Put the badge up, tell us where to look, and we’ll add you to the right group. Listing is free and always will be. We check every site before it goes on, so the list stays worth being on.