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Travel · head to head

Egencia vs Kayak

Egencia logo

Egencia

Travel

Corporate online booking and travel management from Amex GBT for mid-market and enterprise programmes

From
On request
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Kayak logo

Kayak

Travel

Travel search app comparing flights, hotels and car hire across other booking sites, owned by Booking Holdings

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Only Kayak has a free tier, so it costs nothing to try first.
  • Each has a real cost: Egencia pricing is per transaction and offline touches cost several times an online booking, so a programme with many complex multi-leg itineraries pays far more than the headline online fee suggests.; Kayak it is owned by Booking Holdings, the same parent as Booking.com and Priceline, so its comparison results are not fully independent of its own group's commercial interests.
  • They diverge on capability: Egencia covers Policy and approval engine, Kayak covers Flight, hotel and car comparison.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 1 September 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Egencia and Kayak actually diverge.

Attributes where Egencia and Kayak differ
AttributeEgenciaKayak
Starting priceOn requestFree
Pricing modelquoteFree to users, revenue from referral commissions and advertising
Free tierNoYes
PlatformsWeb, iOS, AndroidiOS, Android, Web

Identical on both: user rating (Not yet rated), category (Travel).

What each one covers

Drawn from each product's published feature list. An absence here means we hold no record of it - not that the product lacks it.

Only in Egencia

  • Policy and approval engine
  • Negotiated rate loading
  • Traveller tracking
  • Agent support
  • Concur Expense integration
  • AI booking assistant

Only in Kayak

  • Flight, hotel and car comparison
  • Price alerts
  • Price prediction
  • Flexible date search
  • Trip planning tools
  • Explore/anywhere search

What people use each for

The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.

Egencia

  • A company of several hundred travellers wanting negotiated hotel rates without paying for a high-touch TMCnot Kayak
  • A finance team standardising on SAP Concur that wants booking data pre-populating expense reportsnot Kayak
  • A multi-country employer needing consolidated duty of care reporting on where staff are travellingnot Kayak
  • An organisation moving off a regional TMC and wanting one supplier across Europe and North Americanot Kayak

Kayak

  • Comparing flight prices across multiple airlines and booking sites before purchasingnot Egencia
  • Setting a price alert to buy a flight or hotel once the price dropsnot Egencia
  • Searching flexible dates or nearby airports to find a cheaper farenot Egencia
  • Comparing car hire prices across rental companies for a tripnot Egencia

Where each one falls short

Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.

Egencia

  • Pricing is per transaction and offline touches cost several times an online booking, so a programme with many complex multi-leg itineraries pays far more than the headline online fee suggests.
  • It is now a service tier inside Amex GBT rather than an independent supplier, so a competitive process that shortlists both Egencia and Amex GBT is not really two bids.
  • Regional content and service quality are uneven, and companies with travellers in smaller markets often find local fares and hotels missing from the tool and end up going offline.
  • Implementation to load negotiated rates and configure policy typically runs months, and rate loading errors surface as travellers seeing the wrong prices rather than as a clean failure.
  • Because the platform underwent a relaunch on new architecture, customers migrating from the older Egencia stack have faced feature parity gaps and retraining during the transition.

Kayak

  • It is owned by Booking Holdings, the same parent as Booking.com and Priceline, so its comparison results are not fully independent of its own group's commercial interests.
  • Some airlines opt out of listing on metasearch sites entirely, so Kayak's results are not a complete view of every available fare in the market.
  • Revenue comes from referral commissions, and prominence in results can be influenced by which suppliers pay Kayak more, not purely by lowest price.
  • The actual booking typically completes on a third party site, so problems with a booking, cancellation or refund are handled by that site's customer service, not Kayak's.
  • Displayed prices can change or fail to match by the time a user reaches the booking site, since Kayak is not always querying live inventory in real time for every listed fare.

Pricing, plan by plan

Egencia

On request
  • Egencia$undefined/year
    • Per-transaction booking fees, online and offline rates differ
    • Optional annual platform or management fee
    • Implementation and rate loading charges

Kayak

Free
  • FreeFree
    • Unlimited search and price alerts
    • No subscription tier

Which should you pick?

Choose Egencia if

  • You need policy and approval engine.
  • You work on Web, iOS, Android.
  • You also want negotiated rate loading.
Egencia review

Choose Kayak if

  • You need flight, hotel and car comparison.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on iOS, Android, Web.
  • You also want price alerts.
Kayak review

Questions people ask

Is Egencia or Kayak better?
Neither clearly leads. Egencia starts at On request and Kayak at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Egencia or Kayak?
Kayak has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at On request for Egencia and Free for Kayak.
Does Egencia or Kayak run on more platforms?
Egencia runs on Web, iOS, Android. Kayak runs on iOS, Android, Web.
Can I use Kayak for free?
Yes. Kayak has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. Egencia starts at On request.
What is Egencia best used for?
Egencia is most often used for a company of several hundred travellers wanting negotiated hotel rates without paying for a high-touch tmc, a finance team standardising on sap concur that wants booking data pre-populating expense reports, a multi-country employer needing consolidated duty of care reporting on where staff are travelling, an organisation moving off a regional tmc and wanting one supplier across europe and north america. Of those, a company of several hundred travellers wanting negotiated hotel rates without paying for a high-touch tmc and a finance team standardising on sap concur that wants booking data pre-populating expense reports are not what Kayak is typically brought in for.
What can Egencia do that Kayak cannot?
Egencia covers Policy and approval engine, Negotiated rate loading, Traveller tracking, Agent support. Kayak covers Flight, hotel and car comparison, Price alerts, Price prediction, Flexible date search.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Egencia: Is Egencia still sold under its own name?

Yes. Amex GBT bought it in 2021 and kept the brand, relaunching it in 2026 with a conversational AI assistant and a Concur Expense integration.

Kayak: Does Kayak charge a booking fee?

No, Kayak itself is free to use; it earns referral commissions from the airlines, hotels and sites it sends bookings to.

Egencia: How is it different from Amex GBT itself?

Egencia is the more self-service, lower-touch tier of the same company, aimed at mid-market programmes; Amex GBT proper is the high-touch enterprise service.

Kayak: Do I book directly through Kayak?

Usually the booking completes on the airline, hotel or travel site's own platform after Kayak hands off the click, though some direct booking options exist for select content.

Egencia: Does it replace an expense system?

No. It books travel and feeds data to expense tools such as SAP Concur; you still need an expense product.

Kayak: Is Kayak owned by an airline or hotel chain?

No, it is owned by Booking Holdings, which also owns Booking.com, Priceline and Agoda.

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