I don't know why I didn't use Travala.com to search for my hotels during my recent trip back from Portugal to the U.K.
Instead I used Booking.com - just habit I guess, but I got to wondering how good Travala.com is these days so I did a couple of searches on both sites for a hypothetical trip back to Portugal, and the results are broadly similar...
One night 7-8th September, Poitiers in France
Poitiers is the perfect first stop towards Spain or Portugal, basically in the middle of France and means roughly 10 hours of driving from the SE of the UK on day one....
Booking.com
Travala.com
Interestingly Travala gives me the cheapest hotel, but then the price of the second hotel and 'next expensive' batches are slightly more pricey than for booking.com.
So here, booking.com wins for the range of cheap but not the cheapest options!
Night two - 8th-9th Sept in Bayonne, south of France
An easy 6 ish hour drive from Poitiers, another decent option for a stay...
Booking.com
Three decent cheap options, ignoring the hostel which was P1...
Travala.com
Unfortunately not so good, only two options under 70EU...
Final Thoughts: Travala.com is getting there but....
It's not quite there yet compared to booking.com - the prices are slightly more expensive and the range of budget options no so broad - NB I always rule out the very cheapest option, that's typically a shit hole, and so Booking.com definitely wins!
However, the kickbacks in crypto rewards you get with Travala might offset the slightly higher costs of course!