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Whether you are an avid adventurer or a frequent business traveler, you’re probably a frequent visitor to the Booking.com website.
In this article, let’s explore what is Booking.com in terms of functionality, and how it is different from its counterparts. Moreover, let’s find out how not to compromise your private phone number when registering using some of today’s handy digital tools.
What is Booking.com?
As the name says, the service was designed as a platform for booking hotels and apartments online at almost any corner of the world. The eponymous online travel agency was created in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, later acquired by the US company Priceline Group.
Now, you can log in to a Booking account through both the web version and mobile apps available in Google Play and AppStore.
However, why does Booking.com stand apart from its competitors such as Airbnb and other services? To clear it up, let’s look at the service’s most important features and opportunities.
What is Booking.com in Terms of Functionality?
What is Booking.com when speaking of the most useful functionality? One of the most prominent features of the platform is that it offers to customers the vast base of hotels (400,000) and apartments (2.3 millions). Listings also contain other kinds of dwellings such as guest houses, cottages, hostels, etc., to date, covering over 220 countries.
When you land on the website’s homepage, you can see specific collections gathered to help customers faster choose the most suitable option. For example, here you can find popular trip locations, unique types of dwellings (the French chalet and Spanish casa rural), homes favored by previous guests, and more.
Another useful thing about Booking.com is that it shows you available apartment options. After setting up a town or exact location, day of arrival and number of guests, you will see the list of options that were selected by the system. Moreover, with a Booking.com account, you can book a house or apartment in real time. For that, you only need to provide the data of your payment card and confirm the booking.
The in-built filtering system is well-thought, allowing you to search for a suitable option based on the price, rating, and location. What is more, with the Booking account, you can check images, room descriptions, interactive maps, as well as reviews of the previous guests. To make the search even more convenient, the app also allows customers to add options they like the most to favorites to check them later, as well as managing all the bookings. Thus, you can review, edit and cancel any of your booking using the Booking.com app. To save you money, the service also notifies you about useful promotions and sales.
Is it Safe to Use a Booking.com Account?
Booking.com deals with money enabling customers to pay for reservation using integrated payment systems. Thus, it refers to one of the most wanted website types for hackers and online fraudsters.
There are a few data breaches of user data that are officially known. One of the most significant happened in November 2024. Then, Booking.com returned all the payments to users from the UK, US, France and some other countries. Since then, the company has seriously improved its protection system. It limited access to the user data only from the hotels’ computers. Moreover, the service has blocked numerous phishing websites and together with banks blocked mull bank accounts.
The next serious leakage occurred in 2021. Personal user data of over 4,000 Booking.com account users and almost 300 numbers of credit cards leaked into the fraudsters’ hands.
To protect users from further data leakage, Booking.com uses the best practices in Internet security. Though, it still cannot ensure the 100% safety of your data. This way, if you are concerned that your mobile number can be stolen from the website’s database, consider leveraging a one-time use virtual phone number for getting an Booking.com code.
Virtual Phone Number for a Booking.com Account?
Temporary virtual phone numbers are useful if you want to hide your online identity from online fraudsters. Using a virtual phone number with a 20-minutes (or longer!) expiration period helps you to get the Booking.com code and after that get rid of the number.
Since these numbers are connected neither to geolocation nor specific devices, it makes it much harder to track it to an end-user. That is why it significantly raises your level of anonymity both through the internal service system and the global Net itself.
Moreover, using a virtual number from SMS-Man allows you to virtually register from 190+ countries and get access to 3500+ platforms and applications. Even those that are not accessible from your living area. What is more, it is possible to buy a bulk of numbers at an affordable price. That is why they are a perfect solution to register multiple accounts for marketing purposes.
Here are a few steps you need to follow to obtain a disposable virtual phone number for Booking.com:
- Set up an account on sms-man.com through email address or join via Gmail.
- Top up the balance by clicking “Top Up” in the top right corner and choosing the most optimal method.
- At “Receive SMS”, select the service (Booking.com) and click “Buy” next to the required country.
- Copy the number from ‘History’ and utilize it for your Booking.com account.
- Go back to SMS-man and click “Receive SMS” near the number.
- Finish the account verification by applying the code.