While Reddit is not a review site, many people look to sites like Reddit for an unbiased opinion on a company like trip.com. Much like the review sites though, commenters on Reddit threads about trip.com are divided. Some people call them ‘the worst company they have ever dealt with’ while others say they have used them several times without any problems. Most people agree that if nothing goes wrong and you don’t need to change your booking, trip.com is perfectly fine and good value. While Reddit is unverified and anyone can post there, it can be a good way of getting first-hand accounts from people who have used services like trip.com. Reddit commenters also offer an insight into how third party companies like trip.com are able to offer flights even cheaper than the airline – see the comment below. This commenter provides details on how people who purchase cheaper airline tickets through third parties like trip.com are more likely to get bumped off the flight if it is oversold. It’s not possible to verify whether this is true, but it does seem like a plausible explanation.

Conclusion: is trip.com legit?

Is trip.com legit? The simple answer is yes. While there some poor reviews for trip.com that may be daunting for potential customers, despite their low prices. Trip.com do appear to respond quickly to each review.

Many of the good reviews are left by people who did not encounter any issues such as cancellations, whereas most of the bad reviews are left by people who did have issues. Those who wanted to try and change a booking after it had been confirmed or had a flight cancelled through no fault of their own. With third party operators such as trip.com, the company themselves don’t really need to get involved unless there is a problem, so it appears that their customer service has in some cases let them down rather than their core services.

As mentioned previously, trip.com has 400 million customers, so it is natural to expect some of them will have a bad experience with their service. Travel and flights are high-stakes purchases that people rarely make on a whim, so when they do have a bad experience they are more likely to leave a review sharing their experience. When one makes a physical purchase, it’s usually not much trouble to return it, but in terms of experiences like travel, the time lost can never be reclaimed, even if the money spent on it is refunded.

It is worth mentioning that other similar services such as Expedia or booking.com have categorically poor reviews on Trustpilot. In fact, Expedia is rated as ‘bad’ with an average rating of 1.1 out of 5.Trip.com continues to be popular due to its convenience and low prices on flights, hotels and more.