I’m probably not the only one who has seen a lot of people on social media talk about and promote kiwi.com. I decided to try them out, so I can give you an honest kiwi.com review and you can take an informed decision to book through them or not.
This post may contain affiliate links, which means I’ll receive a commission on products or services if you purchase through my link, at no extra cost to you.
and boy, I have some thoughts. Even Ryanair (who I’m flying with) has some thoughts. Continue reading to find out everything about
What is kiwi.com?
First of all, let me tell you what kiwi.com is exactly.
Kiwi.com is an airfare comparison website that claims to find cheaper flights, or flight combinations, than any other comparison websites. You can book your tickets through them and they offer a number of extra services for a fee, such as quicker customer service, a guarantee, or ticket types.
Is Kiwi.com a scam?
This is a question a lot of people have been wondering online. Some parts sound too good to be true, but all the extra service options can make everything very confusing.
With an average of 3.6 stars on TripAdvisor it seems like the experiences of other customers have been vastly different, so I’m here to tell you what booking with kiwi.com is really like.
Is kiwi.com really cheaper?
Yes and no. Let me explain.
When I was looking for my flights I was able to find much cheaper flights than I was able to find on for example Google Flights. I’m talking €250 vs €100. As a budget traveler, that is a significant difference. So much so that it made the difference between going and not going. I was so surprised I just booked it.
So in that aspect, yes, kiwi.com is definitely cheaper than other airfare comparison websites.
Now I do understand these websites have to make money in some way, so they do charge €30 per person in booking fees. Judging by the price difference between kiwi.com and the other airfare comparison websites, I didn’t even think to look up the flights directly on the airline website itself, but when I did later, I easily found the exact flights for the price kiwi.com quoted, minus the €30 fee.
Okay, figuring out what exact flights to take myself would have been very time consuming, but a 30% ‘discount’ by booking it myself is something I’m absolutely willing to do.
There is only thing I found that kiwi.com does for you that booking with an airline directly won’t. That is that kiwi.com checks you in, so you don’t have to do that yourself.
So in that regard, no, Kiwi isn’t magically cheaper than booking it yourself.
Confusing ticket types
The first thing that really confused me. During the booking process I was given many options to book extra services from kiwi.com.
When you first book your ticket, you get the option to choose between 3 different ticket types. Kiwi.com claims this is to make the customer’s experience easier.
You can choose between saver, standard and flexi tickets, each a little more expensive than the other, with varying services for customer service, flexibility and refund options. The price difference seems to be dependent on how much your tickets cost.
Paying for customer service?
When you continue after this page you get to change just your customer service experience.
Again, they gave me 3 options: basic, plus and premium. Basic is free, plus cost €10 and premium cost €20.
Basic gives you 72 hours reaction time and low priority in the customer service waiting line. You also pay €30 for any additional services, like pets, rentals and activities.
Plus gives you 24 hours reaction time, medium priority and you pay €10 for every additional service.
Premium gives you 3 hours reaction time, high priority and you pay no extra fees for additional services.
To me this is very strange. Paying for decent customer service? What are you really paying the booking fee for then?
Judging from the reviews on multiple review websites their customer service sometimes doesn’t even exist. A lot of people reported getting no help from the customer service when a flight got canceled and they weren’t refunded.
Waiting for confirmation
If booking tickets is an anxiety inducing task for you, kiwi.com isn’t going to make this any easier for you. When you have chosen your flights and paid for them, you have to wait around 20 minutes for them to confirm your flights. They give a warning this process can sometimes take up to 24 hours!
If you have to take a flight within a day, I wouldn’t want to risk that! I have never seen any other airline or airfare comparison website do this.
Confusing verifying process
My flights for me and my fiancé were split into 4 flights, all via Ryanair. I got an email from kiwi.com saying Ryanair flagged the booking process and needed me to verify my identification for only 1 flight out of 4. Just me, just one flight. If I didn’t do this, Ryanair could fine me €55 to still in the airport.
This is because kiwi.com is a third party and they often use their own credit cards to book the flights for you, so Ryanair needed me to confirm said flight was actually for me. Why the other 3 flights, or my fiancé were fine, I honestly don’t know.
They provided me a link to do this, but apparently I wasn’t quick enough and they link sent me to a page which told me I wasn’t able to identify through them anymore and had to do this through Ryanair myself, which could also result into extra costs.
Finally, I found where to identify myself on the Ryanair website I was given 2 options. I could identify within 24 hours, but pay €0.46, or have the verification process take up to 7 days, but it’s free. I chose the latter as my flight wasn’t scheduled in less than 7 days. They verified me within a day.
Authorizing Ryanair
To add to this confusion, I had to agree that kiwi.com was taking their hands off of this flight and gave further communication to Ryanair. I’m not sure what this means, but in a way this proves to me more that I could have better booked the flights myself if I’m not getting anything from kiwi.com regarding this flight anyway.
As I’m writing this I get an email from Ryanair saying: “There are no benefits to booking with a third party. These companies often add extra charges to our products which ultimately makes you pay more for your trip. We’ve seen countless instances where our passengers have faced unnecessary difficulties due to booking through a third party, all of which could have been avoided by booking directly with Ryanair.” They even provided me a list of real issues their passengers unfortunately faced by booking with a third party!!!
Flight experience
By the time this post goes up, I have already flown 2 out of the 4 booked flights. Fortunately they went smoothly, no missed or canceled flights, no need to contact the customer service.
So far so good. My mistake has cost me an unnecessary €60 in total, but fortunately that’s it. Hopefully my next 2 flights will go without issues as well.
Read more: 5 Travel Mistakes I Made So You Don’t Have To
My conclusion
No, kiwi.com is not a scam. You can definitely book tickets through them.
However, with the extra fees, the many confusing options and the not-so-raving reviews, I definitely don’t recommend them.
My advice is to use kiwi.com as a guide to find the flights and book those flights directly through the airline yourself.
