Travala.com Introduces Crypto Checkout for Booking.com Accommodations

As the result of a recent partnership with Travala.com: blockchain enthusiasts can now  choose from the huge portfolio of accommodations provided via Booking.com – and pay using cryptocurrency through the Travala platform.

This new relationship was marked with the mutual signing of a ‘Strategic Partnership Agreement’, along with the publication of a press release on behalf of Travala.com. The Travala accommodations will, likewise, be added to the Booking.com platform as a result of this agreement, however those using Booking.com will not be able to pay using cryptocurrency.

Travala was founded in 2017 and calls itself a “champion of cryptocurrency adoption” which “accepts all the leading cryptocurrencies” in addition to “credit and debit cards[,] and PayPal”. In a September 2019 advertorial, the company claimed to offer “the best prices on 1,654,357 properties, worldwide”.

Booking.com was founded back in 1996 in Amsterdam, the Netherlands and advertises its brand with the tagline “The World’s #1 Choice for Booking Accommodations”. It’s a part of Booking Holdings Inc. – a company which also owns different brands across various industries: Kayak, Priceline, Agoda, Rentalcars.com, and OpenTable.

Any accommodation purchased via Travala can be done via its own proprietary AVA token, in addition to a host of other tokens.

Here’s the full list

Travala (AVA), Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Dash (DASH), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Litecoin (LTC), EOS (EOS), Stellar (XLM), Cardano (ADA), BNB (BNB), Monero (XMR), TRON (TRX), XRP (XRP), NEO (NEO), Nano (NANO), Kucoin Shares (KCS), Digibyte (DGB), DAI (DAI), KMD (Komodo), Zcoin (XZC)

AVA token is the ecosystem’s so-called native digital asset. It is a NEO blockchain-based NEP-5 coin with a reported total supply of 61,571,086, of which 44,283,312 is currently in circulation.

These tokens can be accumulated in a variety of ways. Customers can purchase them directly from supporting exchanges, with one of the latest additions being Binance’s Decentralized Exchange (DEX) as announced on October 22, 2019. Other methods include 2% crypto-back on all bookings made through Travala.com, and user reviews.

Primary features of AVA theoretically appeal to frequent flyers as holding and staking results in a wide array of benefits: discounts, and proposed loyalty schemes, and more.

In related news: Travala.com migrated to Binance Chain in September 2019 whilst initiating a ‘Buyback and Burn Program for AVA’ token, perhaps to help mitigate inflation-related concerns. Furthermore, Litecoin Foundation partnered with Travala.com back in May 2019.

“This partnership allows our users to access Booking.com’s accommodation listings, as well as the listings from several other leading travel suppliers, which is a fantastic use case for our own AVA token and another huge step towards mass cryptocurrency adoption.”

Matt Luczynski (Travala.com, CEO)

Cryptocurrency and travel are a growing industry, with more companies appearing (seemingly) constantly. Adoption has been on the rise also, with German airline Hahn Air having issued what have been widely accepted as the ‘first blockchain-based tickets’ just last month.

Early November, it was reported that Webjet had initiated a blockchain which was created for the means of “booking verification”.