I am passionate about helping you experience the wonders of travel.
My in-depth guide to finding cheap one way flights is your essential starting point. But if you want to take things further, travel cashback programs offer another level of potential savings.
One of the most exciting programs to get cashback from travel is WayAway. Not only does it help you find cheap flights, but also hotels, car rentals, attractions, and tours.
What is WayAway & How Does It Work?
At its core, WayAway is a flight aggregator. But it’s also a lot more.
WayAway’s flight offering works similarly to travel comparison platforms that you’re used to, like Skyscanner and Google Flights, with powerful metasearch and filtering tools. However, it covers even more airlines AND you save up to 5% on flights in the form of cashback. These aren’t “points”, “miles” or some other useless gamification. It’s cold hard cash that you can withdraw at any time to your Paypal account.
WayAway partners with trusted 3rd party airlines and travel agencies for hotels, taxis, rental cars, tours, and attractions.
In order to get access to cashback benefits, a paid membership called WayAway Plus is required. It’s only US$49.99 per year at the moment (which works out at just over $4 per month).
But you can still use many of their great metasearch features for free.
But How Does The Cashback Work?
Money doesn’t just come out of thin air. It has to come from somewhere.
Like other travel metasearch platforms, WayAway receives affiliate commissions from airlines and travel agencies that it partners with. But unlike competitors that keep that profit for themselves, WayAway passes it on to their members in the form of cashback. They keep the lights on with a small membership subscription.
The math is easy. As long as you travel a few times each year, the discounts far outweigh the small membership cost.
The cashback percentage varies based on the type of product and supplier, ranging from 3 to 15%. Here’s the breakdown:
- Flights - up to 5%
- Booking.com - up to 10%
- Rentalcars - 5%
- KiwiTaхi - 10%
- Viator - 9%
- GetYourGuide - 8%
- Tiqets - 7%
- Klook - up to 5%
- Hostelworld - up to 6%
- GoCity - up to 3%
- AirHelp - up to $29
- BlueRibbonBags - promo codes for 15% off
You don’t have to guess what your flight cashback will be – it’s displayed next to each flight before you click on it.
Here’s an example trip with indicative savings:
As you can see, the savings add up! These are all expenses that you’d have on a trip anyway, but now you can stretch your dollar further.
WayAway cashback doesn’t expire, and there are no limits to your earning potential. The sky is the limit!
Remember that cashback only appears in your account after your trip is completed. Each supplier’s payout cycle is different. For example, Booking.com cashback is usually credited within 65 days after checkout, but the maximum waiting time is 90 days. Whereas Rentalcars.com credits your cashback within 14 days. You can view the details, including any redemption instructions and limitations, via the WayAway dashboard.
The Perks of WayAway (Free)
You don’t have to spend a cent to use the standard features of WayAway. These are my favourite:
Full access to all flight metasearch tools, with more airlines than most competitors.
Price alerts – keep an eye on time-sensitive flight price drops (or increases). This is an awesome tool to score cheaper flights. It pays to be patient!
Free apps for iOS and Android. These are slick and intuitive – just what you need to search for flights on the go. And you can keep track of your cashback wherever you are (if you have a Plus membership).
The Perks of WayAway Plus
In addition to earning travel cashback, your Plus membership benefits include:
Premium travel support access 24 hours a day via instant messenger. This isn’t just related to your bookings, but to any kind of travel advice. If you’ve got a question, feel free to ask.
In addition to the standard points of interest in city guides, you get even more locally-sourced recommendations, including “hidden gems”.
Optionally offset your carbon footprint using your cashback, or part of it. This is thanks to WayAway’s partnership with Sustainable Travel International. WayAway matches your contribution to double the value. That’s good for the environment and future generations of travellers.
Other Really Cool Features
WayAway’s user interface design is second to none - incredibly intuitive, easy to use, and easy on the eyes. It feels effortless to navigate around the site. You have to try it for yourself, and then you’ll understand.
Powerful flight filter tools which just offer enough options to be useful, and not too many to be overwhelming. Flights are labeled with exceptionally practical summaries like: cheapest, cheapest with a convenient layover, cheapest direct, most convenient, morning departure, and evening arrival. This makes it even easier to find the perfect flight in less time.
If you’ve got a more complex trip, easily book multiple flights with the “multi-city route” flight search.
Incredibly beautiful price charts – easily find the cheapest day to fly with elegant colour-coded bar graphs.
Once you’ve selected a flight there’s more useful data than any other OTA I’ve come across. Baggage pricing is separately identified so there are no nasty surprises later. The baggage limits are clear (carry-on and checked baggage), and my favourite… flight statics – how often this route is on time, up to 45 minutes late, over 45 minutes late, or cancelled.
Easily find the cheapest destinations to fly to with a user-friendly map. This is a convenient starting point when you don’t know where to go but have a tight budget.
It might sound simple, but I love the options to control how the pricing is displayed. It’s a pet peeve on other OTAs. Control how flight prices are displayed: for 1 passenger or all. And hotel prices: per night or the whole stay.
Impressive city guides are jam-packed with useful info that you need to know before travelling. You’d normally have to go searching around a travel blog to find that kind of rich, practical advice. But it’s all here in one single interface, consistently displayed with a dash of humour. When you’re unfamiliar with a new city, the “featured spots”, “classic sights” and “local favourites” helps you discover both essential and off-the-beaten-path attractions. But the stand-out feature is the “neighbourhoods” – a visual map with colour-coded areas describing the vibe with cute names like “tourists”, “cultural mashup”, “old money”, and “hipsterville”.
Check out these examples of San Diego, and New York.
Points of interest – find useful details about attractions, museums, national parks, food & drink, film locations, interesting architecture, and photo spots with convenient integration to Google Maps and Instagram if you want to keep exploring. Here’s an example of the Empire State Building. There’s just enough to get a taste but not too cluttered.
If you’re already a “Genius” level member on Booking.com (like me) then you can opt for your WayAway benefits to be up to 10% cashback or up to 20% discount on selected deals.
If you’ve got a question, then chances are WayAway has covered it in their FAQs.
Is WayAway Legit?
Although it’s a relatively new kid on the block, only having launched in mid 2022, WayAway has quickly established itself as a trustworthy travel platform.
Transparency and privacy are at the heart of everything WayAway does. In the dashboard, you can modify cookie preferences and request a data report on everything they’ve collected about you. If you decide that WayAway isn’t for you, it’s also possible to entirely delete your profile.
Once you’re a Plus member, you can view all cashback instantly from your secure dashboard. No need to contact them.
Easily enable or disable email notifications and app push notifications. So you don’t get messages if you don’t want them.
WayAway doesn’t actually book flights or other travel products – these are done through their trusted partners (on their respective websites). WayAway’s metasearch simply helps you find the best value flights and hands you over to the partner. You don’t spend your money with WayAway, which adds another level of safety and peace of mind.
But how do the flight prices stack up against other OTAs? This is the litmus test. I’ve compared results from Skyscanner and Expedia, and each time the flights were the same price or cheaper on WayAway. Since WayAway offers more airlines than Expedia, I found many times that Expedia was significantly more expensive. Here’s an example:
But if you don’t believe me, check out these reviews from other customers on Trustpilot.
Limitations
There aren’t any significant drawbacks or risks with WayAway, but it’s worth knowing about these limitations:
To access travel experts as part of the Plus membership, you need to connect your Facebook account to WayAway. This is to enable the integration with Facebook Messenger for live chat. It only took a few seconds and was very easy. I didn’t mind, but if you don’t have a Facebook account (or you’re boycotting the platform), that will prevent you from accessing travel experts.
At the moment, there are 3 methods of membership registration – Google, Facebook, and Apple. This has some security benefits since there is no new username and password combination to record (or hack). Still, if by some bizarre situation, you don’t have these accounts (or don’t want to use them), you won’t be able to register. The basic free features of flight and hotel search will still be accessible.
The Bottom Line
If you travel a couple of times each year, a WayAway Plus membership is really worth it. On top of your cashback, you can combine your existing discount and reward programs with your preferred OTAs such as Booking.com or Viator.
It might sound cheesy, but the truth is WayAway makes researching and booking travel a lot more fun. Even for a jaded travel blogger like me.
And earning cashback from travel is the sweet, sweet icing on top.
Price: US$49.99/year
Where to buy: www.wayaway.io
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