Hotels and flights you can book with Bitcoin right now

Travel was the first big use case for "spending Bitcoin" — Expedia took BTC briefly back in 2014. Twelve years later, Expedia is out and a small set of dedicated players runs the show. Here's how the market actually works in 2026.

Travala: the default

Travala is the closest thing to "Booking.com but for crypto." They list 3+ million properties globally, plus a flight-booking arm that's competitive with Expedia and Skyscanner most of the time.

What they take: BTC (on-chain and Lightning), ETH, USDT, USDC, BCH, LTC, plus their own AVA token. They also take Visa/Mastercard for travelers who want to book a flight while keeping crypto reserves intact.

What's good:

• Inventory genuinely is global — we tested searches in Tokyo, Buenos Aires, Cape Town, and Reykjavík; coverage was decent everywhere
• The AVA loyalty program (they call it Smart Program) gives meaningful discounts when you hold the token, plus cashback in AVA on every booking
• Cancellation rules pass through from the property — if Marriott's 24-hour-free-cancellation applies, it applies on Travala too
• Prices are usually within 1–2% of Booking.com's rate; sometimes lower, occasionally higher

What's not:

• The AVA loyalty discount is real but requires holding the token, which is a price-volatile asset
• A few smaller boutique properties (especially in Europe) aren't on their inventory
• Their flight engine sometimes shows higher fares than direct airline sites for the same routes

CheapAir: the OG for US flights

CheapAir has accepted Bitcoin since 2013 — they were the second major travel site to do so. Today they take BTC, BCH, ETH, LTC, and DOGE.

Their angle is US-centric. The flight-search engine pulls from a fairly comprehensive set of carriers, and their hotel inventory has improved. Prices are competitive with Expedia for North American routes; less so for intra-Europe or intra-Asia, where regional aggregators usually win.

The cancellation policy is clear: book a refundable fare, you get a refund in cryptocurrency at the current exchange rate. Book a non-refundable fare, you get a credit that can be re-applied to a future booking within a year.

Pacaso: vacation home shares

Pacaso is in our directory but it's a different beast — they sell fractional ownership of luxury vacation homes (1/8 to 1/2 share of a property), payable in BTC, ETH, USDT, or USDC. This isn't "book a hotel," it's "buy a co-ownership stake in a real property and use it your scheduled weeks."

Worth knowing about if you're in the upper bracket of crypto wealth and want a vacation home without the full ownership burden. Not relevant for a typical traveler.

The indirect route: gift cards for travel

If your favourite airline or hotel chain doesn't take crypto directly, Bitrefill sells gift cards for several of them — Airbnb, hotels.com, Marriott Bonvoy, Delta. Spread is 1–3% depending on brand.

This is genuinely useful when:

• You want to use a specific hotel chain's loyalty program (which Travala won't credit)
• You're buying for a route Travala doesn't cover well
• You want a refund-friendly purchase (the gift card itself is hard-currency-pegged)

Loyalty stacking

This is the move most BTC-paying travelers miss. Travala's AVA Smart Program rewards you on every booking. Most of those bookings are properties whose own loyalty program (Marriott Bonvoy, Hilton Honors, IHG One Rewards) you can also enrol in.

In practice:

1. Add your Marriott Bonvoy number to your Travala booking
2. Pay in BTC (or AVA, for the discount)
3. Stay at the hotel — Marriott credits your Bonvoy points based on the rate paid
4. Travala credits AVA cashback on the same booking

You earn from both sides. The catch: a few hotels have "blackout" rules for third-party bookings. Always confirm with the property's front desk on arrival that your loyalty number is attached.

Cancellations: the gotcha

Here's the one gotcha you absolutely need to know.

If you book a refundable rate, pay in BTC, then cancel, you do not get the same number of bitcoins back. You get the fiat-equivalent value at the moment of refund, paid back in BTC at the current price.

Example: You pay 0.005 BTC for a $300 hotel night. BTC drops 10% by the time you cancel. You get back 0.00555 BTC ($300 worth at the new lower price). You haven't lost dollars but you've gained BTC — or in the reverse case, you'd lose BTC.

Most people are fine with this. Some traders deliberately arbitrage it. Whatever your view, just go in eyes-open.

What about Booking.com, Airbnb, Expedia direct?

None of them take crypto in 2026. Expedia briefly did via BitPay in 2014–2018 and removed it. Booking.com explored a partnership but never launched. Airbnb's CEO has talked about adding crypto for years and hasn't.

The cleanest workaround for Airbnb specifically is Bitrefill's Airbnb gift card (USA region), which redeems as Airbnb credit at face value. For Booking and Expedia, your only path is to convert to fiat, then book.

Practical playbook

For a typical hotel booking outside the US:

• Travala first. Compare the price against Booking.com on a separate tab.
• If Travala is within 1.5% of Booking, just use Travala.
• If Booking is much cheaper, sell some BTC for fiat, book direct, and accept the friction.

For a US flight:

• CheapAir first. Compare against Google Flights.
• If CheapAir matches or beats by less than 2%, book there.
• If not, gift cards for major US airlines via Bitrefill (Delta, JetBlue, United via partner) often close the gap.

For a flight outside the US:

• Travala's flight engine, then sanity-check against the airline direct.

What we'd actually do

For a $200 hotel night in a major city: Travala, no question. Quick checkout, real loyalty program crediting, decent price.

For a complex multi-leg flight: book the legs separately on the cheapest engine for each. Crypto-friendly for the parts that work, fiat for the rest.

For a luxury stay where the property has a serious loyalty tier: book direct with the property in fiat, lock in the elite treatment, and use crypto for something where that loyalty doesn't matter.

Browse the travel category for the current set of crypto-friendly travel merchants in our directory.