Travelopod Review – A better way to book tickets to India

The holiday season is here! Many of you must be all excited to plan your holiday vacation too. But are you worried about the exorbitant travel rates? Well, here is a way to reduce your worry. You can always choose to book your  travel tickets through Travelopod. Yes, this is one of the most preferred travel booking sites where you can book your flights, hotel, travel insurance etc.

This article is intended to give you a better insight about Travelopod and how this travel website functions.

What services do they offer?

• Booking of your flights
  You have the option to feed in your destination and departing airports, the date of travel and number of travelers. The Travelopod would make the necessary search based on your requirements. In few minutes, the flight options pop up on your screen and you can choose the best of the deal which matches your needs.
• Offer vacation package deals
  They promote the concept of budget travel where in you get the best package deals within your budget limits. For instance: if you plan to visit India, Travelopod showers your screen with the  best deals offered by all the leading international  airlines. Not only that, you can always get 24/7 assistance via phone or internet and customize end-to-end travel package in sync with your requirement.
• Book hotels via bookings.com
  The hotel booking for your stay will be done via bookings.com which is the preferred partner for Travelopod. You enter the destination details and here comes the list of cheap and best deals in front of you.
• What is a trip planner ?
  This is truly amazing that a travel website can make your itinerary. Wow! I did not know about that. This is possible with Travelopod’s travel planner.As mentioned earlier, once you click on the travel planner tab on the website, the link takes you to a new tab to plan your travel. You ought to mention the vacation destination and a number of days of travel with the number of travelers. Something that is interesting here is that you can also mention the type of activities that you want to do in your destination..
• For example: I mentioned Miami, Florida (9 days ) vacation plan. Here is what I received.

There is a detailed day by day plan plus you have all the liberty to edit the plan. This leaves you with a no hassle trip. Another advantage is that you can always make your trip planning along with your partner by adding a co – traveller. The co traveller can very well edit and make changed to the already existing plans. No planning fee is charged.

• Corporate Travel
  Travelopod is just not for leisure travel but it can be used for booking tickets for corporate travels as well.  They offer custom designed  solutions in the most professional and  cost effective manner. Some of the features that can you experience in the corporate travel are: 24 hours emergency assistance by phone or chat, prompt ticketing and email delivery, dedicated relationship  manager, flexible payment options,  cost control  and best ROI on business.
• Car Rental
  You can also rent a car via rentalcars.com. Feed in your details and search for cars. I felt that the rates where reasonable and the cars are rented out from various vendors based upon the location.

The two main players in the travel industry are Expedia and Priceline. I did a test between Travelopod, Priceline and Expedia to check out which online agent would come back with the lowest flight rate from Portland, Oregon to Houston, Texas for one traveler.  I chose the peak travel period which is December, 25th – 31st, 2016.

Let’s see how the result turned out to be:

Priceline : $1026 (United Airline) / non – stop flight/4 hours travel duration/ round trip/economy class

Travelopod: $735.20 (United Airline) / non – stop flight / 4 hours travel duration / round trip/ economy class

Expedia: $1026 (United Airline) / non –  stop flight/4 hours travel duration/ round trip/economy class

Notes: Priceline and Expedia were not ready to search the deals for me through the chat operators. They asked me to check the deals online as I was not ready for reservation. Whereas, the Travelopod online chat agent was patient enough to deal with my queries and assist me with the deal details. I am happy that I got the best and cheap fare for a round trip. This test was taken on December, 9th, 2016 at 1.30pm.

Here is a comparison between Travelopod Vs Expedia

1. Expedia has a larger hotel inventory than that of Travelopod. Moreover, in Expedia you are not redirected to another service provider rather they do the booking through the list of hotels they have partnership with. Travelopod redirects you to bookings.com.
2. Expedia has reward system for each booking you make whereas Travelopod does not offer any such deals.
3. Expedia provides cruise deals as well.
4. Expedia has mobile apps which help its customers to make the booking even using mobile phones. Whereas in Travelopod, you need to call the agent for making a booking. They are still in the process of making an application.
5. Another point to be mentioned is that Expedia provides the number of seats left/rooms left at price point.

Travelopod Vs Priceline

1. Offer rates at more than 10,000 hotels
2. Provides Priceline guarantee which means the general public can show the lowest price provided elsewhere and Priceline would match them 100%.
3. They tell us how many people are looking at the same hotel and number of rooms or seat left.
4.  Travelopod’s discount on hotels is not very much lower as compared to the Priceline deals.

Travelopod is an emerging travel booking site and I am sure we will be able to see the tremendous amount of improvement in their service in the coming years. My experience with them was very good. They had a very welcoming online chat service who were ready to listen to your queries and provide you with the details. I must say this, online travel sites are the best ways to find good and amazing deals. These websites have become a “must go” point for exploring the trip deals as they offer everything starting from a flight, car rentals, hotel stay and now planning your trip as well. No more standing in long queues to book the tickets and worrying whether the rooms are available or not. Everything happens at your finger tip. I am eager to read from you all on your experience with Travelpod in the comment bar below.