I have a soft spot for it, as it is a Singaporean enterprise.
I booked a flight once using lightning, just to see how it works. And yes, it did work flawlessly as expected. No complaint from service or operational perspective.
But...the fare quoted was/is ridiculously high, compared to whatever the airlines quotes on its own site. I read that travala gives coins/points back, but only if you have some kind of (separately purchased) membership, so it does not work unless you are a very frequent traveller.
I do like businesses that accept sats, but not ready to pay a huge markup for the privilege of spending sats. Until there are many more competitors, I suspect merchants like travala will continue to exploit an unusual degree of pricing power.
Being a TPA is a competitive business with cutthroat margin, and agencies themselves have very little pricing power. So 8% for the exact same seat is ridiculously high. It may be because they don't have the volume of Expedia and trying to make up by premium.
I mean if you take crypto out of the equation, I suspect no agent will survive by charging an 8% premium for the same seat. But may be travala finds some crypto lovers who will pay the 8% to not off ramp via an exchange.
I know some bitcoin maxis who absolutely have no asset other than bitcoin (maybe just like $100), so they have to spend their bitcoin. Probably Travala is for them.
In general, my experience has been good. It's a good place to buy flights and hotel reservations and pay in bitcoin. They accept both lightning and on-chain. They use OpenNode as Lightning processor.
Keep in mind the experience from waxwing and don't send coinjoined on-chain funds to them. It looks like they are blocking coinjoin because of the new regulations this year or something. I would recommend using always lightning to pay, plus it's more convenient because it's instant and you won't have to wait for on-chain confirmations before your booking is confirmed.
Also keep in mind that they add a 3% markup on the fiat-bitcoin exchange rate, even though they don't say it explicitly. On the other hand, if you start accumulating AVA you can eventually get to higher tiers on their Smart program and get discounts (up to 5% discount plus 5% giveback). AVA is a shitcoin, but you can forget about that fact and think of it as just loyalty points.
Overall, it's decent (the service works adequately) but not ideal, especially because of the "compliance" issues mentioned before and the shitcoinery. I have noticed that when they mention "crypto" events on their blog, they almost never include bitcoin-only events, as if they don't want to upset shitcoiners with "toxic" maximalism. Truth be told, a good chunk of their sales come from shitcoins and "stable"coins. Granted, shitcoiners probably love living an hedonistic lifestyle rather than saving. But that's something where bitcoiners have to improve: get rid of their fiat once and for all and use bitcoin for both saving and spending. Otherwise they will find out the hard way that might trumps money and that having sound money means little if you must go through fiat rails to spend it. But I digress here.
I wish there were more options for booking travel with bitcoin, especially for other things like trains in Europe and more lodging options, especially apartments. They mostly use the Expedia portfolio for lodging options.
Be aware of this, waxwing also mention it
view on nostr.comI have a soft spot for it, as it is a Singaporean enterprise.
I booked a flight once using lightning, just to see how it works. And yes, it did work flawlessly as expected. No complaint from service or operational perspective.
But...the fare quoted was/is ridiculously high, compared to whatever the airlines quotes on its own site. I read that travala gives coins/points back, but only if you have some kind of (separately purchased) membership, so it does not work unless you are a very frequent traveller.
I do like businesses that accept sats, but not ready to pay a huge markup for the privilege of spending sats. Until there are many more competitors, I suspect merchants like travala will continue to exploit an unusual degree of pricing power.
Again, experience wise, it is flawless.
If you booked the flight long ago, I would give it another try. The flight pricing has improved significantly during the past year.
Just checked, Singapore to London (one way) on Valentines day. Travala charges about 8% more than the British Airways site itself for the same flight.
I don't know if their algorithm differentiates based on customer profile, but I gave so many details so that you can try to check for yourself.
It used to be that a flight would cost maybe 50% more than somewhere else. That's what I understood by ridiculously high.
Being a TPA is a competitive business with cutthroat margin, and agencies themselves have very little pricing power. So 8% for the exact same seat is ridiculously high. It may be because they don't have the volume of Expedia and trying to make up by premium.
I mean if you take crypto out of the equation, I suspect no agent will survive by charging an 8% premium for the same seat. But may be travala finds some crypto lovers who will pay the 8% to not off ramp via an exchange.
I know some bitcoin maxis who absolutely have no asset other than bitcoin (maybe just like $100), so they have to spend their bitcoin. Probably Travala is for them.
In general, my experience has been good. It's a good place to buy flights and hotel reservations and pay in bitcoin. They accept both lightning and on-chain. They use OpenNode as Lightning processor.
Keep in mind the experience from waxwing and don't send coinjoined on-chain funds to them. It looks like they are blocking coinjoin because of the new regulations this year or something. I would recommend using always lightning to pay, plus it's more convenient because it's instant and you won't have to wait for on-chain confirmations before your booking is confirmed.
Also keep in mind that they add a 3% markup on the fiat-bitcoin exchange rate, even though they don't say it explicitly. On the other hand, if you start accumulating AVA you can eventually get to higher tiers on their Smart program and get discounts (up to 5% discount plus 5% giveback). AVA is a shitcoin, but you can forget about that fact and think of it as just loyalty points.
Overall, it's decent (the service works adequately) but not ideal, especially because of the "compliance" issues mentioned before and the shitcoinery. I have noticed that when they mention "crypto" events on their blog, they almost never include bitcoin-only events, as if they don't want to upset shitcoiners with "toxic" maximalism. Truth be told, a good chunk of their sales come from shitcoins and "stable"coins. Granted, shitcoiners probably love living an hedonistic lifestyle rather than saving. But that's something where bitcoiners have to improve: get rid of their fiat once and for all and use bitcoin for both saving and spending. Otherwise they will find out the hard way that might trumps money and that having sound money means little if you must go through fiat rails to spend it. But I digress here.
I wish there were more options for booking travel with bitcoin, especially for other things like trains in Europe and more lodging options, especially apartments. They mostly use the Expedia portfolio for lodging options.