How we work

3A. Definitions and who we are

Some of the words here have specific meanings, so check out the “Booking.com dictionary” in our Terms of Service.

When you book a Rental on Booking.com or Rentalcars.com, Booking.com Transport Limited provides and is responsible for the Platform – but not the Travel Experience itself (section 3B). Booking.com Transport Limited is a company registered in England and Wales (company number: 05179829; registered office: 6 Goods Yard Street, Manchester, M3 3BG, United Kingdom).

3B. How does our service work?

We make it easy for you to compare bookings from many different car rental companies. The information on our Platform is based on what Service Providers tell us, and we do our best to keep things up to date at all times.

Our Platform shows you the Rentals you can book through us worldwide, and our search results page tells you how many of them might be right for you, based on what you’ve told us.

When you book your car, you enter into a contract with us, and we agree to arrange and manage* your Booking.

When you sign your Rental Agreement at the counter, you enter into a contract with the rental company, and they agree to provide the car. You’ll already have reviewed and accepted all the key terms while booking the car.

*We’re here to try to help you if you need to change or cancel your booking or if you have any questions before, during, or after your Rental.

3C. Who do we work with?

Every rental company on our Platform is a trusted partner who passed all our tests before we started working with them. Only Service Providers with a contractual relationship with us will be displayed on our Platform. They may also offer Travel Experiences outside our Platform, so what they offer on our Platform may not be exhaustive.

Our specialist team visits rental companies before they appear on our Platform, and all Service Providers on our Platform are professional traders.

3D. How do we make money?

We make money when we find you a Rental. There are two ways we do this:

• We agree on a commission with the rental company for our services, or
• The rental company provides us with a net rate, and we apply our own markup.

Either way, we aim to offer our customers multiple choices at competitive prices, all on a Platform that is free for you to use.

If a car in your search results has a badge that says “Ad,” it means that the Service Provider has paid for it to appear there.

3E. Our recommendation systems

How Booking.com uses recommendation systems

We use recommendation systems to select, display, and/or rank the information on our Platform to help you discover Travel Experiences we think you’ll like. When you visit our “Car rentals” landing page, you’ll find several recommendation systems, including popular car rental brands with the most bookings.

Our search results are also a recommendation system. In fact, they’re the recommendation system our customers use the most, so be sure to check out the “Our default ranking and sorting options” section.

All the recommendation systems we use provide recommendations based on one or more of the following factors:

• What you tell us in the search form: location, dates, etc.
• The information we’ve gathered based on your previous interactions with our Platform, such as your past searches, existing reservations, etc., unless you opted out of the personalized recommendations.
• How you currently interact with our Platform, including the country where you are while browsing
• The performance of different Service Providers.

To make it as easy as possible for you to find and book a car, each factor can be more (or less) important in different cases, depending on what we think is most likely to produce a list of cars you may want to book.

Our default ranking and sorting options

Our search results show the top 50 car rental bookings that match your search criteria, taking into account your sorting preference and filter choices, if selected.

When you first get your search results, they’ll be sorted (“ordered”) by “Recommended” (default ranking). At the top of our search results, you’ll find the cars we think you’ll like, based on an ever-changing recommendation system that weighs in all kinds of factors, such as price, ratings, size, profit, car specs, and more.

The relative importance of each factor changes constantly, but we’ll ensure that we recommend the most suitable cars.

Many of these factors help our recommendation system decide which cars might be the most appealing and relevant to you. Some play a small role in that decision, while others play a significant role. The importance of each factor can change depending on the features of each car and how you and other people use our Platform.

For example, the number of bookings often plays a large role in these decisions because it directly reflects the car’s overall appeal and how satisfied our customers are when they get more details about it.

A high click-through rate usually means that the car makes a good first impression on our Platform (e.g. through price, pick-up location, or rental company), and getting a lot of bookings indicates that many people find it meets their requirements.

Other factors also play a role. For example, we might give preference to cars from companies that are part of our Genius program or offer versatile, user-friendly payment policies. These factors suggest that these rental companies understand how important service and convenience are to our customers.

If you would prefer us not to prioritize cars based on these factors, you can also sort your results in other ways, such as:

• Price: The results are displayed in price order, with the cheapest option first. That simple. This will rank the results based on the “Car Rental Price” only and will not consider the price of any applicable security deposit or extras you may choose to add.
• Top Reviewed: Cars are ranked by customer ratings, with the highest scores displayed first. Those ratings come straight from the “welcome home survey” we send customers after their rentals, asking them to score their rental company from 1 to 10 in several areas, such as helpful staff, the car’s condition, value, etc.
• Genius: The results show cars with Genius discounts higher in the ranking. This option is only available on Booking.com when signed in to your account.
• Distance: This option sorts results based on the distance from the address or location you have provided. It’s only available when searching for non-airport locations.

If you choose to sort based on price, distance, or rating, the factors described in “Recommended” can still influence the results. For example, such factors might act as secondary “tiebreakers” between two or more cars that would otherwise appear in the same spot where the price, distance, or rating (where applicable) is the same. However, the “Recommended” factors are purely secondary because they’re only used where we need to decide which of two cars to put first.

Whichever sorting option you choose, you’ll be able to use filters to narrow down your results.

About our labels and tags

On our search results, we sometimes add labels and tags to the listings to highlight certain characteristics, such as:

• “Ad”: If the listing in your search results has this label, the Service Provider has paid for it to appear there.
• “Featured”: When a listing has been selected by Booking.com to be boosted to a higher position for multiple reasons, such as to show you deals we think you’d like, to understand a specific market better, or to help us fulfill our obligations with suppliers.
• “Top pick”: The highest organically ranked listing, when taking into account your sort and filter preferences.
• “Ideal for families”: The highest organically ranked medium-sized car listing, when taking into account your sort and filter preferences.
• “Genius”: Listings with Genius savings available if you have an account and are logged in.
• Percentage tag: Where a promotional saving is applied to the car listing, the saved percentage will be displayed as a tag.
• Hybrid and Electric labels: If a car is a hybrid or electric, it will be labeled accordingly.
• Previously viewed: When you check a deal and return to search results, the listing you checked will be labeled as such.

3F. Reviews

After your Rental, you’ll be invited to leave a review, which may be:

• Uploaded to our Platform to help other customers make an informed decision*
• Used for marketing purposes on our Platform, on social media, in newsletters, etc.*
• Shared with your rental company to help them (and us) provide an even better service**

*We would not use your full name or address.

**To help the rental company improve, we may tell them which Rental the review is about.

We publish every consumer review we receive, whether positive or negative, unless it breaches our Content Standards and Guidelines.

When there are multiple reviews, we’ll show the most recent ones at the top. Note that on our app, we only show scores and no comments.

3G. Prices

The rates displayed on our Platform are set by the Service Providers or by us. We may finance rewards or other benefits out of our own pocket.

When you make a booking, you agree to pay the cost of the Travel Experience itself and any other charges that may apply (e.g. for any extras, insurance, or taxes). Taxes and fees may vary for different reasons, such as the Service Provider’s location, the pick-up location, or what you’re planning to do with your Rental. The price description tells you what taxes (if any) are included. You’ll be able to find more information about the price while you’re booking.

Our Platform provides descriptions of any equipment that Service Providers offer, based on what they tell us. It also tells you how much they’ll cost.

Any currency conversion is for information purposes only – actual rates may vary.

3H. Payments

When you book a Rental on our Platform, Booking.com will organize your payment. For details, check out “Payment” (A8) in our Terms of Service.

3I. Help and advice – if the unexpected happens

If you have any questions or something doesn’t go according to plan, be sure to contact us. If it’s about something that happened during your Rental, we’ll be able to help you more quickly if you provide (if available):

• Your booking reference number and the email address you used when you booked your car
• A summary of the issue, including how you’d like us to help you
• Details of anything you’ve been charged (if any)
• Any supporting documents such as bank statements, rental agreement, final invoice, damage documentation, photos, boarding pass, receipts, etc.

If you do that, one of our agents will be in touch as soon as possible. They might need to ask you more details. Whatever the issue is, we will do what we can to help you.

For more information, check out “What if something goes wrong?” (A16) and “Applicable law and forum” (A20) in our Terms of Service.