Travelzoo Review: Legit Site to Book Your Next Trip With?

What is Travelzoo?

Travelzoo is a website that publishes deals on travel, entertainment, and local businesses, like restaurants and spas. The company was founded in 1998 and is headquartered in New York, New York. Travelzoo has 30 million members.

Travelzoo doesn’t offer travel bookings directly to consumers. Instead, it features deals with a bunch of different third-party travel providers. It works in partnership with more than 5,000 travel suppliers. Companies pay to have their deals listed on the site.

How Does Travelzoo Work?

On the Travelzoo website, you’ll find a bunch of deals on everything from cruises to city breaks to beach vacations. These will save you money on travel. Getting deals from Travelzoo is simple.

Depending on what it is you’re purchasing, you’ll either get a voucher from Travelzoo that you will need to redeem, or you will be redirected to the travel provider that is actually selling the package.

Here are some of the items that you can get deals on at Travelzoo:

• Hotels
• Spas
• Restaurants
• Activities
• Cruises
• Flights
• Vacation packages

Is Travelzoo Legit?

Travelzoo is a legit website where you can find deals that save you money on travel, as well as at local businesses, such as restaurants and spas. Travelzoo has 4.7 stars on Trustpilot which is a rating of “Excellent.” It has an A+ rating with the Better Business Bureau (BBB), although it is not accredited with the BBB.

Despite being a legit company, Travelzoo is not without its faults. The main one is the quality of some of the travel providers that Travelzoo partners with. Some are not as good as others, which has resulted in some customers having a bad experience with the travel, activity, spa, or restaurant that they found through Travelzoo.

The company only has 1.18 stars from customers on the BBB and 1.8 stars on Consumer Affairs.

Travelzoo customer reviews

Customer reviews can help you to decide whether a company is legit or not. There are many positive reviews on Travelzoo.

In a review on Trustpilot, one consumer says:

• “Secluded location behind a quiet beach. This delightful manor house with a garden overlooking the sea was a perfect stay. We took our dog and were made exceptionally welcome with a room upgrade on the ground floor. The food was so good my husband took a photo of breakfast! And, last but not least, the staff were all fabulous.”

Another consumer says on Trustpilot:

• “A hidden gem in southern Oregon that we’re so happy to have discovered with Travelzoo’s help! It has history, a great setting on the famous Rogue River, friendly staff, and well stocked rooms with comfortable beds. All we could ask for.”

In this Reddit thread, people praised Travelzoo:

• “I once got a train ticket from philly to Newark and a round trip airfare to San Diego for under $300 it was all legit”
• “I’ve used it to get resort spa treatments in the off season for super cheap and it’s 100% legit!”

In this Reddit thread, another consumer praises Travelzoo, saying:

• “I’ve booked deals I’ve found on Travelzoo without ever having a problem. But you don’t book with Travelzoo; they are just an aggregator.”

Unfortunately, not all of the Travelzoo reviews are legit. Customers have complaints about the company. As I said above, the company’s main issue is that not all of the travel providers that it partners with are of good quality.

In a review on the BBB, one consumer states:

• “I contacted Travelzoo about a vacation I bought from an advertisement on their site. I explained how the company was fraudulent and saw the other bad reviews for UTO vacations and they continued to advertise these vacation packages for UTO Vacations knowing they would take the client’s money and then cancel the trip and then not want to give a refund. Travelzoo advertises these fraudulent travel agencies, knowing they aren’t legit.”

In a review on Consumer Affairs, one consumer says:

• “I am so very disappointed in my recent experience with UTOvacation. I have been a Travelzoo member for many years, and always had great experiences with your Top 20 vacation deals. My experience with UTO was very different. Same as previous posts regarding the advertisement of UTO vacations. UTO changed the submission date and then said the tour was booked in full even though I said I could be very flexible on dates. Now I am out 4k. UTO is offering my family a travel credit, but as I read more about the company this is just another bait and switch to get more money out of you, to again cancel with the offer of a credit. After doing research I see this is not an isolated case, and many families have lost thousands to this company, and by extension, Travelzoo is benefiting from the traffic to their site. Travelzoo continues to advertise this company’s deals even after the abundance of burned customers.”

Travelzoo Pros and Cons

In this section, I’ll cover the pros and cons of Travelzoo, so you can decide whether or not the site is for you.

Pros

Here are the pros of Travelzoo:

• It’s a legit company.
• It’s well-rated on Trustpilot and by the BBB.
• You can save yourself a lot of money on travel.
• There are local deals available too.

Cons

There’s one main con of Travelzoo, which is that not all of the travel providers that Travelzoo partners with are good. This means that you could book one trip through Travelzoo with one provider, and it will be good, and then book another trip with a different provider and it will be bad.

So, there’s no consistency in terms of the quality of the travel that you can book through the company.

Travelzoo FAQs

In this section, I’ll answer some common questions that people may have about the company.

How much does it cost to join Travelzoo?

Travelzoo costs $40 per year.

How does Travelzoo make money?

Companies pay to have their deals listed on Travelzoo.

Is Travelzoo refundable?

You can get a refund for your vouchers or cancel your hotel bookings online. You can sign in to the site in the upper right corner, and go to “Purchases.” To get a refund for hotels, click the “Cancel” button. To get a refund for vouchers, click the “Request Refund” button.

How do I book on Travelzoo?

It depends on what you are purchasing through Travelzoo. You can either get a voucher from the company that you need to redeem, or you’ll be redirected to the third-party travel provider to complete your purchase.

Travelzoo Review: Overall Verdict

Overall, Travelzoo is a legit company that enables consumers to book a bunch of different travel items from cruises to hotels to flights all at a low price. There are even deals for local businesses too.

While the company does provide an impressive array of budget-friendly travel options, it falls short when it comes to consistency in the quality of the travel providers that it partners with.

Travelzoo should be more stringent when selecting which providers it partners with. This would make it so that consumers get a good experience through Travelzoo across all providers. Right now, it seems pretty hit and miss for consumers.

My advice would be to Google each individual travel provider that you’re considering booking with through Travelzoo. Then, you can see whether it’s a legit company and whether customers have a good experience with it. This will help you to get the best deals from Travelzoo and weed out those deals that aren’t good.

Overall, you can find some decent deals on Travelzoo. Just be sure to research third-party providers before you book anything through Travelzoo.