[If you use the promo code “ON70G2L80” in the “My Vouchers” section, you’ll receive a 10€ credit on your first booking. I’ll also receive a 10€ for future bookings]
You may not of heard of JustBook.com before and that’s because they are a European company. They are one of an increasing number of hotel comparison sites that allow you to earn miles/points by booking through their portal (Pointshound & Rocketmiles being their biggest competitors).
Besides just being European, they are a little bit different than their competitors. They focus on same-day bookings and you can book via their mobile app or their web based app.
They have partnerships with over 1,000 hotels in 45 cities. They were founded in Germany and thus most of the hotels are located there. Although they do have partnerships with hotels in London, Prague and Amsterdam. They’ve also recently expanded and now have hotels in US cities: New York,
How Does The App Work?
Every day at 2am, the app updates and the user is presented with five hotels per city in the following categories:
- Luxury
- Upscale
- Design
- Comfort
Users can then book the hotels for that day (you can now book hotels for more than just today, although the best deals are for today only). They claim that the savings can be as much as 50%. But all of the savings we saw were at 17%.
We decided to do a test to see if the savings were really what the website claimed. We chose New York City for today (31st of January, 2014). The top hotel was Royalton, the normal price (as listed on the JustBook website) was $554 which was reduced to $462 ($92 or 17% savings). I decided to check the Royalton website and they don’t have any rooms that usually cost $554, in fact their cheapest “standard” room is $399. The JustBook website doesn’t tell you what type of room you’re getting, but we have to presume it’s the most basic room. This means that by booking with JustBook you’re actually paying $63 more than you would if you booked directly through the hotel.
Price different between JustBook and Royalton, you pay $63 more
We decided to check a few more and all had similar price discrepancies. In our research it was always cheaper to rent the hotel room on the hotels website directly.
Who Can You Earn Miles With?
JustBook has an exclusive partnership with Lufthansa and their Miles & More loyalty program.
How Many Miles Do You Earn?
- Earn 2 miles per € spent
- Earn 500 miles automatically for your first hotel booking
How Do You Add A Voucher Code To JustBook.Com?
- Click your name in the top right corner
- Click “My Vouchers”
- Type your voucher code into the space provided (“ON70G2L80″ will get you 10€ off your first booking and will also give me a 10€ bonus) then click confirm
- Book your hotel
- Click on the voucher you want to use when you reach the payment screen
Our Verdict
This looks like an interesting website/app, for those who visit Europe often and are open to trying a new hotel or two out for a night then it might be worth a look. My major concern is that you’re always buying more than you would if you booked directly. This is why it’s important to always check multiple sites to make sure you’re actually getting the best deal. The 2 miles per € spent is nice, but it only has one awards program – whereas the competitors have multiple options. How many rewards points you actually get is largely irrelevant because of how much they rip you off on the room rates.
If this app/website actually gave the correct discount, it might be a good option. The problem is that most hotels have to give a price guarantee to the major booking sites (e.g hotels.com) that they’ll give them the lowest price – otherwise they won’t list them. This means that JustBook will rarely if ever actually have discounts of 17-50%. They would be better off doing what their competitors are doing (RocketMiles and PointsHound) and offering the same prices as the major travel booking websites, but also giving rewards points.
