Travellergram Review [Would I Use It?]

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Travellergram has popped up relatively recently. Given the many scams that are associated with booking online for various travel plans, it’s understandable that one would be wary about a new company popping up.

In this review, I’ll be giving you my honest opinion about Travellergram and whether I would use them or not.

What is Travellergram?

Travellergram is an online site that aims to help travelers book their vacations by getting them the lowest prices possible and taking away a lot of the work involved in planning a vacation.

Where is Travellergram available?

It’s an online site that targets mainly the U.S. and is available to users nationwide. The company itself is registered to do business in the U.S. but has offices located in both Singapore and UAE.

How much does Travellergram cost?

Travellergram does not cost anything to the customer. They are able to make money because they partner with Google Travel. Every time Travellergram gets a customer to book a hotel via Google’s platform, they get a set percentage as commission.

Is Travellergram legit?

Simply looking at the Travellergram website, it’s hard not to feel nervous about using them. Travellergram doesn’t even spell the word “traveler” correctly.

The website looks like it was taken out of an early 2000’s page. It’s got a very one-dimensional feel to it. Even more disconcerting is the lack of professionalism on the site in terms of grammar and spelling, especially if you’re trying to market yourself to a U.S. audience.

Here are a few of the misspellings you get trying to locate a hotel on their front page:

• “Please find the hotels and location first”
• “Guest’s” when inputting the number of guests
• “Please wait a moment”

As far as one can see, there really isn’t much of an online presence to Travellergram, other than a single press release that was published in 2020, which is unfortunately when things went south for the travel industry as a whole. It couldn’t have been easy for Travellergram to try to make a name for themselves among the already large plethora of travel booking options out there, and established ones at that. They also have an Instagram with over 17K followers, but pretty generic photos posted. Interestingly, clicking on their social media link does not link to their Instagram but rather just loops you back to the home page of the website.

According to BBB, it is really a mixed review. Some people praise it, while others are convinced they have been scammed. Although BBB reviews should always be taken with a grain of salt, people tend to post reviews on BBB when they feel like they have been wronged or simply hated something about the company and wants to destroy it.

What is Travellergram’s cancellation and refund policy?

Basically, in their cancellation policy, they point out that their refund policy is the same as whatever the hotel’s refund policy is. If the hotel allows full refunds, partial refunds, or no refunds, then that is what Travellergram will allow. They also state that in the case of refunds, it can take up to 14 days to receive it. Furthermore, they are allowed to tack on additional fees and penalties if they wish. There isn’t a set amount stated anywhere on the website.

They do state specifically though, that if you file a complaint with your bank and the dispute is resolved in Travellergram’s favor, Travellergram has the right to charge you an extra $50 for their troubles.

Travellergram has a specific cancellation clause for cancellations due to emergency situations such as earthquakes, floods, and canceled flights. However, I for the life of me have trouble understanding it. It states in the first sentence:

“For non-refundable bookings or bookings that are already in the penalty window only with the hotel written approval to waive charges.”

This doesn’t exactly make me have a lot of faith in what will happen when my booking gets canceled due to an emergency cancellation. The best I can make of it is that you may get the refund if the hotel allows it, but even if you do, Travellergram has the right to keep 3.9% of it and will give the rest of it back to you after taking their cut. If you think I’m wrong and you can decipher otherwise, please let me know. I will change it in this post.

Alternatives to Travellergram

At this time, there are numerous competitors and alternatives to Travellergram. These include:

• Trivago
• TripAdvisor
• Kayak
• Expedia
• Travelocity
• Orbitz
• Hotels.com

How to stay safe when booking travel reservations online

Even when you’re booking travel reservations on reputable sites such as Trivago and Expedia, you’ve got to be careful of any links you’re clicking into for the actual purchase. Lots of sites list themselves on reputable sites and look quite similar to actual hotel sites around the world, so you may be led into thinking that you’re purchasing directly from the hotel website when you may actually just be giving money to a completely different and unrelated party.

The sites operating these scams are called imposter sites. These sites aren’t even there to serve as a middleman and take a cut of a purchase; they solely want to take your money and run.

Unfortunately, this is an all-too-common occurrence, and even with reputable sites doing their best to filter scam websites out, these scams pop up every day and unfortunately fall under the radar. To keep safe from these types of scams, always type in the direct address of the hotel website you’d like to stay at on your browser. Links can be deceptive and much harder to identify as malicious.

Furthermore, to keep yourself safe online, always pay by credit card. That way, if you realize after the fact that you fell for a scam, you still have a good chance to get that money back on the basis of fraud. Don’t pay by debit as it does not offer the same protection as a credit card.

In conclusion

Even with already established and reputable sites, you already have things to worry about. You always have to make sure that the site you’re paying on is actually the site you intended to be paying on, rather than an imposter.

Travellergram has not yet established a reputation, and with the professionalism, or lack thereof, of their website, I’m not so sure they’ve got it in them. They may very well have been extremely unlucky and tried to start up a travel booking site at the worst time possible in the midst of a pandemic. Either way, they don’t seem to have done much in the way of improving anything even as the travel industry started picking back up.

I wouldn’t use them personally, and I can’t recommend them to anyone at this time. I will keep an eye on them and see if they manage to make any improvements. For now, I’d stick with the big-name booking sites. Those still require due diligence, and it’s best not to have to worry about any extra things if you don’t have to.

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