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Kayak

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Overview

Kayak has a rating of 2.3 stars from 321 reviews, indicating that most customers are generally dissatisfied with their purchases. Reviewers complaining about Kayak most frequently mention customer service, credit card, and search engine problems. Kayak ranks 213th among Travel Search Engine sites.

  • Service
    55
  • Value
    48
  • Shipping
    17
  • Returns
    25
  • Quality
    41
Positive reviews (last 12 months): 50%
Positive
3
Neutral
0
Negative
3
15
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How would you rate Kayak?
Top Positive Review

“Good Customer Service”

Ernie John C. T.
1/16/24

Since Kayak offers discounts from other websites, I appreciate it. The fact that they don't provide discounts for Southwest Airlines—which often have cheaper prices if you don't mind delayed flights—is noteworthy. When comparing prices on several booking websites, such Expedia and Priceline, I usually use Kayak.

Top Critical Review

“Worst Travel site to use!”

Steve B.
2/20/24

I recently booked a hotel room at the Hyatt House Charlotte, N.C. Using Kayak / Traveluro using the Kayak app. I selected the 2 queen bed room but they changed it to a king room and could not get them to admit their mistake or any help what so ever, terrible customer service,

Reviews (321)

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Reviews that mention popular keywords

customer service (60) use kayak (72) credit card (20) travel sites (21)
Thumbnail of user dimitryp
California
6 reviews
38 helpful votes
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June 6th, 2021

Bought a ticket through KAYAK, the airline moved the date forward, making it useless for me. Nobody could give me my money back for a while. Finnair was saying it wasn't booked through them, KAYAK was saying they did not book it (I have the receipt from them, confirmation number and all), could not get to anyone at KAYAK who would tell me what the third party is or even try to be helpful.

HOURS spent. Their insurance company won't have anything to do with this either, I could not get my money back at all, they just keep saying it's not the situation they cover.

After I wrote this review someone got in touch with me and eventually paid me back. Not the insurance money though, that was entirely wasted, never buy flight insurance, it seems to be just scam.

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Value
Returns
Quality
Thumbnail of user nikkiy26
Pennsylvania
1 review
1 helpful vote
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December 7th, 2022

I been using kayak for years now. It's used to be my only search for flight. Kayak Always have the best deal of all site. But not anymore. The price as shown is not the price you gonna get when you purchase. Or the flight is not available.

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Value
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Thumbnail of user ryanh52
Hawaii
5 reviews
12 helpful votes
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March 3rd, 2014

Kayak.com compares pricing of a variety of flight information for you and is convenient in that aspect, but the navigation of the page, the prices offered, and the overall quality of the experience was less than stellar.

Thumbnail of user anil31
Czechia
1 review
4 helpful votes
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November 22nd, 2013

Hi guys,

I am here with a request from you. I would like to know if Kayak send the invoice trough email?
- needs to be requested separately?
- included in billing address?
- invoice included in confirmation page or email?
- printable? Ability to save invoice in pdf?

I will really be happy if one of you can asnwer. Thanks a lot

Thumbnail of user pagayamie
Philippines
1 review
0 helpful votes
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January 16th, 2024

I have booked for Kayak and the price is very affordable and the service was really good. Besides, I would love to give them an overall 5-star rating.

Service
Value
Shipping
Returns
Quality
Thumbnail of user kristalo
India
5 reviews
7 helpful votes
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September 15th, 2014

We are deciding to planning a trip to malaysia. Then we are went to the travel trip site kayak.com for the travel guidelines and tips. They gave map, climate details and other details like expense, vehicles, tourist place, food and cottage etc. But we are very struggling for reaching and staying there because of the bad guidelines and the trip advice.

Service
Thumbnail of user maxl4
Hawaii
1 review
3 helpful votes
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August 22nd, 2012

DO NOT USE KAYAK! They are a scam. They will use your credit info and keep charging you for reservations you never made. My bank even called them to tell them they are committing fraud and fought to get my money back. Their call centers are fraudulent. They are not in the United States but they pretend that they are and use American names to try and fool you but none of them understand English at all. It is impossible to communicate with them. STAY AWAY!

Thumbnail of user charless145
Pennsylvania
1 review
5 helpful votes
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August 25th, 2016

Do not use kayak.com. We bought tickets through them. The tickets were canceled, but we did not receive notification. Even though they were canceled, the tickets continued to be listed by kayak.com under My Trips, so we had no way of knowing that they were cancelled. We didn't find out that we had no tickets until we checked in for the flight. These things happen, but when we called them to report that they information listed under My Trips was inaccurate, they were not only unhelpful, but extremely rude. Using kayak.com cous us an extra $1000 and the aggravation of being treated rudely. Spare yourself and do not use kayak.com

Thumbnail of user jimb119
California
1 review
3 helpful votes
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July 29th, 2014

I recently used Kayak to secure a hotel reservation in Greenville SC. The Kayak site reviewed the hotel as reasonable and a good buy. Nothing was further from the truth. The owner of the hotel had let the site go down hill and it was disgusting. The hotel employees were empathetic and offered me a refund. When they found I had bought on Kayak, they let me know I was out of luck. This is a sham and should be outlawed. This is outright theft and Kayak and the hotel owner should be prosecuted. When I went back to the Kayak site to post my review of the hotel, I was not allowed to post a review.

Thumbnail of user joycec3
New York
1 review
3 helpful votes
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October 19th, 2012

We placed reservations for the weekend in McGregor, IA and when we got to McGregor we found out that the hotel did not exist. We spent alot of time on hold to talk to an agent to get this situation resolved with no results. Then we had to cancel the reservation at a loss of one night that should have been spent on a night in McGregor, Iowa. We had to try to find a room with the events going on in the surrounding towns. We also tried to email them and got a response of a non-human was responding to our email. I do not recommend this site (Kayak-Travelocity) to anyone.

Thumbnail of user leof12
Nevada
2 reviews
92 helpful votes
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July 24th, 2015

Cheap flights, hotels and travel deals.
Compare hundreds of travel sites at once to find cheap flights, the best flight deals and cheap airfare. Used it to book the cheapest flight tickets for direct flights, last minute flights and business travel.

Thumbnail of user aulat
California
1 review
3 helpful votes
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July 6th, 2014

I absolutely hate kayak with a passion now. They ruined my whole entire trip, to the point where I was crying because the customer service was horrible over the phone and they wasted one hour of my time helping in NOTHING. I requested a none smoking room, but apparently on kayak they only put it as a preference not securely. Best Western offered to transfer me to another hotel as long as they transfer the payment but kayak wouldn't transfer the payment and said i would have to cancel and rebook but they would not give me the same rate. Therefore i had to stay in a smoking room. Best Western gave us free drinks (beer, wine, etc) to compensate for the lack of service from Kayak.

Thumbnail of user efei
Maryland
1 review
3 helpful votes
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April 21st, 2013

Be warned. Do not buy ticket from Kayak. I bought a ticket 4/17/2013 and they sent me the ticket confirmation number. 5 days later, I looked at my credit card bill and noticed a credit. I called Kayak/Travelocity and was told my ticket was cancelled. I did not get any cancellation email or call. They said my credit card could not be verified because my phone number was not on it. I rebooked, and same issue. Please be warned. Worst customer service ever.

Thumbnail of user briant6
Czechia
2 reviews
6 helpful votes
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January 27th, 2011

Travel search engines are a dime a dozen these days and for the time being kayak.com has a leg up. I however, made the mistake of trusting kayak.com's search results and fancy diagrams and it cost me over a thousand dollars. It claimed that the fare that i was searching for was a stable fare and would be stable at that price for several more weeks. Supposedly the tickets I wanted were going to be their for awhile. Days later I went back to the site and found to my horror that the prices had jumped 200 bucks overnight! These things happen but kayak.com shouldn't be claiming to be experts on pricing and claim to have superior pricing analysis when they are just guessing. They claim to much smarter than they really are.

Thumbnail of user katw
Texas
10 reviews
81 helpful votes
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October 23rd, 2009

Very useful meta-engine for travel fare searches. Presents total fare including fees and taxes when searching for airfares and hotels. Allows for multiple multi-destination listings. Good filtering system (nonstop, 1 layover, 2 layovers, etc). Also includes option to open up separate browsers to concurrently search orbitz, priceline, etc., for comparison. Fares are spot on with other sites. Does not allow for hotel and flight packages for multi-destination trips. Even though both outbound and inbound flight combinations are presented as a pair, can select the pair or just one of the flights, upon which the site then presents possible flights for the other portion of travel. Presents the option to search nearby airports. Easy to navigate and parse the information.

Thumbnail of user jeffh83
Tennessee
1 review
1 helpful vote
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June 18th, 2015

I booked on 6/14/15 for 6/20/15 and the weather is keeping us from making it on the trip. I contacted them on 6/18/15 to either try to move the reservation to the next weekend and was told that I had to cancel before 6/14/15 or be charges $210. That would be the exact time and day I made the reservation so basically they have no cancelation optio. Sorry way of doin business and I will never use kayak again and hopefully keep anyone I can reach from using them also.

Thumbnail of user katelynh
Pennsylvania
1 review
3 helpful votes
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August 24th, 2012

Absolutely terrible! I booked through Kayak and when I arrived at my hotel they did not have my reservation and I got charged again for what I had already paid for. I am still trying to get my money back from the hotel I stayed at and I have received zero customer service. Kayak is not an unparrelled experience!

Thumbnail of user mellissam
California
3 reviews
6 helpful votes
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February 18th, 2011

I was looking for discount fairs and all i got was multiple browsers opening uo.
Not sure if it was a bug but if I search, i want the answers displayed so I can navigate and find the best deal at the time I want to travel. Priceline was much better as was Yahoo (believe it or not).

Thumbnail of user tamarg
New Mexico
1 review
2 helpful votes
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March 14th, 2013

I booked 4 international flight tickets, and had to book the 5th through my work. I received an email that I would be notified in 2 hours (!). I called, talked to a person in India, and was told it would go through.

4 hours later- no email, no confirmation- called (India again)- was told that my card was declined the first time (I never got notified of it)- and that I gave a new one (I did not). So I should keep on waiting... four more hours. I will have to cancel the other ticket, and began searching again. By now all the tickets are more expensive and I am facing hours of trying to cancel the one ticket paid by work that did go through- WILL STAY AWAY FROM NOW!

Thumbnail of user kareemmass
Turkey
1 review
0 helpful votes
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July 9th, 2023

My name is Karim Elmasry I booked 4 stars from Super hotel a 6 nights in Turkey through Kayak app. For our anniversary. After traveling for 24 hours the hotel couldn't allocate the booking and after 3 hours talking to Super hotel customer service and spending more than $150 of roaming calls they told me to go to another zero stars hotel or take your money back and when I requested to talk to a supervisor she told me he will call me after 3 hours and when I told her to transfer me to the survey she hanged up on me.

Someone need to stop this false advertising and scam please. I spent more than $3000 and traveled across the planet to spend 6 nights for our anniversary and now i am staying in a hotel with 5 feet reception having washing machine next to the check in desk. This is not fair.

My Super hotel confirmation number is B_*******

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Thumbnail of user gaiusd
Hawaii
1 review
3 helpful votes
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October 16th, 2015

Hawaiian Monarch Security is the worst. Well two in particular. Cause I've had great interactios with others. This evening i came back from a run went to lower lobby to the gym. Two security guards came out the door and closed the door behind them. I asked them to open the door and they said i have to go up through the lobby and down the elevator to get to the gym. Ive been living here for three years and I am fed up with this place. Dont stay here!

Thumbnail of user kurtw9
Canada
1 review
3 helpful votes
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December 24th, 2012

Do *not* book your flight directly on Kayak.com. Their site says that your flight will be managed by Travelocity, however in booking it on Kayak and not directly on Travelocity.com, you are not afforded any of the benefits of a Travelocity customer (namely, you cannot benefit from price or service guarantees).

Go to the travel agency site and book directly. DO NOT BOOK ON KAYAK.COM!

Thumbnail of user pamelal47
Canada
1 review
5 helpful votes
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December 15th, 2016

Booked our trip. Dec 6 2016. Flight we chose was perfect two tickets all business class in all segments of the flights. Booked paid when we got our confirmation not the case we were put in economy in two flight segments. Have been trying to fix ever since. No contact number for Kayak. Must deal by emails. Kayak blames the Airlines the Airlines blame Kayak. Even though I have my flight details Infront of me that we booked all business in all segments of our flight.
I think I have been scammed. I contacted them immediately letting them know there mistake. (Kayak and Airlines)
And I have been in a nightmare ever since.
Why can't I get what I booked.? I'm the consumer and Kayak and the Airlines both expect me to roll over and go oh well what ever. (I ask the public. When have we become a door matt to allow companies to take advantage us.?.) And how many people are they doing this to.?
Kayak was the web site. Just fix our flights

Thumbnail of user brianned24
Florida
1 review
2 helpful votes
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March 19th, 2021

We booked a flight through Kayak and it has been a nightmare ever since. First they charged our card 400 extra dollars for no reason! Then when we went to check in to fly home we found out that someone at kayak used our confirmation code and canceled our flight home. Leaving my family (with 2 small children) scrambling to find a way home. We never got an email saying your tickets were canceled, we never got our money back. We had to pay an extra 1000 dollars and 4 hours on the phone to try and fly our family home! I will be looking into this company more and look into legal action against them! DO NOT I REPEAT DO NOT USE KAYAK!

Service
Value
Quality
Thumbnail of user deltas
Kansas
1 review
2 helpful votes
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March 1st, 2013

I made hotel reservation through kayak in Dec 2012 for dec 27 to dec 30. I contacted kayak on dec 27 to cancel the reservation. Customer representative said they are unable to contact hotel management. I called 18-20 times and sent out email to customer service. Still they couldnt contact hotel reservation team. I was able to contact hotel accountant through number published on hotel site.
I dont understand why customer representatives were not able to contac.
Its been 2 months and i havent received refund yet.

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Kayak is a large price comparison search engine for travel. It has prices for plane tickets, hotels, car rentals, and vacation packages. Kayak doesn't sell any of these services directly, but instead directs you to another site where you can make a purchase.

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jim g.

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