Travala

Travala provides a platform to book flights, hotels, alternate accommodations, and experiences via cryptocurrency, travel credit, and other fiat payment methods. Travala is a key player in the cryptocurrency booking market, claiming to offer up to 40% lower booking prices compared to traditional travel booking platforms. To support this claim, the company offers a “Best Price Guarantee” that allows travelers who booked through Travala and later found cheaper hotels on other booking websites to request a refund for the difference in price. Additionally, hotel bookings made will allow travelers to receive up to a 2% giveback in the form of its native token, AVA. Other cryptocurrencies supported on the platform include Bitcoin, Ethereum, USDT, and another 90+ cryptocurrencies, with the platform using the NEO blockchain to support bookings. Travala’s Smart Program offers direct discounts for bookings made on Travala.com, loyalty rewards, AVA payment discounts, and other benefits.

Travelers are eligible to varying tiers of discounts, ranging from 1% to 10% through its Smart Program based on the amount of AVA staked. To reach the highest membership level offered, travelers can purchase “Travel Tigers” NFTs (launched in December 2021), which grant users voting rights for community proposals, concierge access, loyalty rewards, and ambassador bonuses. Additionally, the company offers a referral program, allowing travelers to earn crypto rewards when invitees complete a booking on the platform. Travala also planned to launch “TravalAds,” which would allow travel suppliers to use AVA to pay for priority seeding of their products in search results, and Review Rewards for travelers to receive AVA for leaving authentic reviews.

Key customers and partnerships

The platform offers over 2.2 million properties in 230 countries for bookings, and as of 1 May 2023, there were ~6,300 Smart Program members, with 78% of bookings made via cryptocurrency in April 2023. 

In August 2024,Travala.com integrated with global travel marketplace Skyscanner to allow cryptocurrency bookings. Previously in June 2024, Travala partnered with Toncoin to integrate TON and USDT on The Open Network (TON) on the travel platform. Further in November 2023 Travala partnered with Kayak for crypto adoption and offering improvement.

Older partnerships include DTravel (November 2022) for direct vacation rental bookings with hosts; IoTeX (April 2021) to explore using the "Pebble Tracker" for decentralized travel logs; Expedia Partner Solutions (March 2021) to access its accommodation portfolio, offering travel packages and discounts up to 70%; and Booking.com (November 2019) to integrate its accommodation portfolio.