The first offer is not automatically the best

As soon as a portal spits out the search results, attention is required. By default, it is not the best offers that appear at the top, but the hotels that have paid for the placement and are therefore "recommended". If you don't want to be fooled, re-sort the hit list, for example by price or guest rating.

The psycho scam with the high demand for rooms

The hotel looks good, the price is right, but you would like to compare again. But there is "only one room left" or "12 people are looking at it" - you are quickly put under pressure. Now it's time to keep calm. According to an investigation by the German Federal Cartel Office, there is usually neither a shortage of rooms nor high demand. Nevertheless, Expedia, Hotels.com and Booking.com use this stress method.

Personalized prices can make booking more expensive

Some providers work with so-called "personalized prices". Data that we leave online, such as our age, gender, place of residence or even profession, is used to set the price individually. If you don't want this, you can surf in "incognito mode". This also prevents multiple visits to the website from increasing the price.

Fake reviews and false star ratings

Around half of travelers look at the reviews of other guests. Watch out! On open portals such as HolidayCheck or Tripadvisor, anyone can publish or falsify a review. HRS, Booking.com and Expedia, on the other hand, only allow reviews from confirmed guests. If you want to make sure that star ratings are up-to-date and, above all, genuine, you can check this at www.hotelstars.eu.

Be careful with insurance on the booking portals

You can often simply book travel cancellation or luggage insurance with your trip. Hands off! If you absolutely want such a policy, you should always look for an independent provider.

Hotel portals compared: these are the test winners

Stiftung Warentest took a closer look at booking portals for package tours. Eight travel agents and six tour operators were among those tested. Conclusion: There are no real black sheep among the 14 online portals examined. Among the travel agents, HolidayCheck, Lastminute.de, Onlineweg.de and Weg.de were all rated "good". Ab-in-den-Urlaub.de was only rated "sufficient" due to its higher prices after the availability check, lots of advertising and pushy promotion of insurance subscriptions. Among the tour operators, Schauinsland-Reisen, TUI and ITS were rated as "good". All providers were criticized for providing rather poor advice by telephone and e-mail.

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