WayAway: Cheap Flights With Cashback (2023 review)
Have you heard of WayAway? As a frequent traveler, I spent countless hours on Google Flights trying to get the best deals and cheapest fares. There are plenty of tricks one could use to get a better price, but all of the require spending a significant amount of time and analysis. It also requires flexibility in your plans and schedules to make decent savings when booking. WayAway came here to change that.
To the point
For years, I’ve been waiting for a revolutionary platform to book flights in a simple way, while getting discounts (even dreaming of a loyalty program). That’s where WayAway comes in.
WayAway is a newly launched platform to book both flights and hotels, which has three key aspects I love: simple, transparent, and sustainable.
Instead of offering their own point system or introducing complicated rewards, the philosophy is very straightforward. Each time you book a flight, a hotel stay, or a car rental through them, you get a fixed percentage back in cash, directly paid to your PayPal account, and ready to use. That’s it.
WayAway also introduced a premium service called WayAway Plus, which gives you cashback for every flight and hotel you book, up to 5% cashback on flights, and up to 10% cashback on hotel stays.
What is WayAway?
WayAway is a flight comparison tool that finds the best rates on plane tickets through online travel agencies and airlines. WayAway also gives up to 5% cashback on bookings of flights, hotels, rentals, and more, to all users who sign-up WayAway Plus.
The WayAway service introduces an innovative search engine that compares airfares across global airlines and agencies, showing the best flight deals for specific travel dates as well as more affordable tickets on alternative dates.
Why Is WayAway Different From Other Booking Platforms?
WayAway offers the best coverage in the US, it includes 24/7 customer support for all travel-related queries, an intuitive mobile app, and cashback rewards. For me, the key difference with other online booking platforms is that WayAway offers direct cashback, plus the option to donate this cashback to Sustainable Travel International to help the environment.
WayAway Benefits
- Direct cashback to your PayPal account (no points)
- Donate your cashback to Sustainable Travel International
- Comprehensive filtering options
- No cashback expiration dates
- Cashback rates between 2-10%
- Travel expert consultation 24/7
Get 10% off from your WayAway Plus subscription using my code AIRLAPSE at checkout.
How Does WayAway Plus Work?
The price of WayAway Plus is $49.99 yearly. Once you sign-up for WayAway Plus, you can bookings with travel services that offer cashback. For example, if you find a hotel stay on Booking.com through WayAway Plus, you receive a cashback reward after the stay.
The key difference with WayAway Plus is that users receive actual cash, not points or miles. The money is sent directly to users’ PayPal accounts, meaning that they are able to spend it how and where they want.
How Much Can I Save With WayAway Plus?
WayAway Plus offers the following cashback rates :
- Flights: up to 5%
- Booking.com: up to 10%
- KiwiTaxi.com: 10%
- Tiqets.com: 7%
- Hostelworld: up to 6%
- Rentalcars.com: 5%
- GoCity: up to 3%
- Klook: up to 7%
- Viator: 6%
- AirHelp: 10%
- GetYourGuide: 8%
Here’s one concrete case study they present, total cashback with WayAway Plus:
- Round flight from Boston to Las Vegas for two ($245 x 2) = ~$25 cashback
- Round airport transfer for $130 = $13
- Hotel for a weekend for $962 = ~$96 cashback
- Car rental for $400 = ~$20 cashback
- Grand Canyon tour for $238 = ~$14
The total cashback is $168 for just one trip, meaning that users can save over 7% using WayAway Plus.
When Does WayAway Plus Pay Off?
WayAway Plus costs $49.99 per year. With an average of 5% cashback between flights and hotels, you would have to book at least $1000 USD in total for the WayAway Plus to start paying off.
If you usually book more than $1000 USD in travel per year, then WayAway is definitely worth the money. Plus, consider that you can combine WayAway with points earned when paying with a credit card, doubling the rewards.
You can get 10% off WayAway Plus using my link and code AIRLAPSE during checkout.
WayAway vs. Google Flights
I did a quick comparison between WayAway and Google Flights to evaluate the main differences, and I was pleasantly surprised! Check out the results below
Test 1: Stockholm to Chicago with SAS (Economy Class)
I went in and searched for one of my favorite routes lately, Stockholm to Chicago nonstop with Scandinavian Airlines SAS (check out my review post here).
Here are Google Flights search results:
And here’s what WayAway offers:
This is a massive $18 USD difference! Plus, if you use WayAway Plus, you would get $7 cashback on top, making a total of $25 USD difference between booking with the airline via Google Flights and WayAway. Most likely, Google is getting that $25 referral commission.
Test 2: Madrid to Buenos Aires (Business Class)
Here’s another test using WayAway on a Business Class flight from Madrid to Buenos Aires. Here’s the date grid on Google Flights:
On WayAway, the fares shown are slightly higher:
When looking at it in more detail, it turns out that Google Flights, compared to WayAway, is showing some extremely long layovers (30h+) that are able to bring down the price.
WayAway, on the other hand, it is suggesting the following results with SkyTeam:
When I filtered out in Google Flights, the best flights I could find with SkyTeam were the following:
That’s a whopping $480 USD fare difference, and the provider is expedited. Booking the LATAM option, you also get $37 USD in cashback with WayAway Plus.
Overall, I would say that the WayAway search engine was able to find great combinations and deals, which were not trivial to find on Google Flights. In my initial tests, I’ve seen $5-$30 savings and cashback on Economy Class fares, and $100-$500 savings in Business Class deals. Keep in mind that sometimes Google Flights find better options with longer layovers.
The worst case I’ve seen was WayAway being slightly more expensive than Google Flights on the same flights, but giving you back that exact same amount in cashback (so equal price, but you get the difference in cashback from WayAway).
WayAway vs. Booking.com
WayAway does not replace Booking.com or any other hotel booking platform. WayAway is an aggregator and comparison tool that points to the cheapest platform to book. You can combine WayAway with Booking.com, to get cashback from WayAway while you book on Booking.com
Conclusions: Is It Worth It?
I was very pleased when WayAway was announced, and the WayAway Plus model is what I was looking for when it comes to a simple and straightforward solution to get some discounts and money back when booking flights and hotels.
For someone who often travels (at least twice a year), the WayAway Plus subscription makes total sense, as the combination between savings and cashback makes it a better option than Google Flights for many of the flights. Cashback is immediate, and you can also donate it to Sustainable Travel International to support sustainable travel (which is a big win).
Looking forward to covering more of the WayAway bookings I make in future posts. I would love to hear your thoughts and experiences with WayAway Plus in the comments!
Until next time, and happy bookings.
