WayAway Plus Review: The Best Way To Get Cashback On Travel

Travel can be expensive these days. But what if I told you there is a way to save more money than you already are on travel? What if I told you you could now get cashback on travel basics like flights, hotels, activities and excursions, rental cars, and more?

This is all possible with the shiny new WayAway Plus membership. Ya’ll, I am obsessed with my newest travel membership–a cashback site for ALL THINGS TRAVEL. I signed up last month and used it to book a flight and a few hotels for an upcoming trip and have already saved myself a couple of hundred dollars!

The WayAway Plus membership (it’s just $5 per month right now, what a steal) offers members up to 10% cash back on airline tickets, hotel bookings, car rentals, and other travel services. Long story short: I’m never booking a flight or hotel without cashback ever again.

The best part is that there’s no minimum balance before you get to cash out. You get to withdraw all your cashback to your PayPal at any time.

If you think you’ll be doing some traveling over the course of the next year, I think you’re going to save big with this membership. You can sign up for a free 7-day trial AND 50% off your first year here.

DEAL ALERT: Use this link or promo code ‘travelswithelle’ for an additional 10% off your membership.

Not sold? Keep reading to learn more about the power of money-saving potential of WayAway Plus.

This post may contain affiliate links. You won’t be paying a cent more, but in the event of a sale, the small affiliate commission I receive will help keep this blog running/pumping out useful and free content. Thanks a lot!

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How WayAway Works

In short, WayAway does two things really well. First, it’s a flight aggregator (similar to Momondo or Skyscanner) that gives travelers the best rates on airline tickets and other travel deals. Second, WayAway shares the commission it gets from airlines and travel agencies with users through a cashback program.

Unlike other aggregators on the market, WayAway is dedicated to a customer-first approach. That means first and foremost, they want to put money back into our pockets!

That’s right, users who sign up for the WayAway Plus membership plan get additional cashback on bookings of flights, hotels, rentals, and more. But we’ll cover more on that in the next section.

Let’s start with a few key highlights of the flight aggregator side of things.

With WayAway’s innovative search, which compares airfares offered by all major US and global airlines and agencies, users can find options for any kind of budget. The service offers the best flight deals for specific travel dates as well as more affordable tickets on alternative dates.

Many other search sites don’t list budget carriers because those airlines don’t want to pay a booking commission to be featured, and some search sites won’t even list flights if their booking sites aren’t in English.

And if you’re looking for the best prices on flights, you aren’t going to find AirAsia, Ryanair, or most other budget airlines on large sites like Kayak, Expedia, or Orbitz.

This is not a problem with WayAway! Plus, the comprehensive filters on the site give travelers limitless flexibility when booking a flight, allowing them to toggle between these features:

• Baggage requirements
• Flight details
• Layovers and overnight flights
• Luggage recheck

For those who are planning to travel far in advance, WayAway gives the option of price alerts, which inform travelers of limited-time bargains and price drops.

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How The WayAway Plus Membership Works

On top of its flight aggregator service, what’s really appealing about WayAway is that they offer something that no other travel aggregator can–the WayAway Plus membership plan!

One word says it all–cashback!

To start saving with WayAway Plus, you’ll first need to buy an annual membership plan at an early-bird price of $49.99. But don’t let that scare you off. Based on how much you travel and how much you can possibly save over the course of 1 year, the membership can easily pay itself off.

From there, you’ll make bookings with travel services that offer cashback on WayAway Plus. For example, let’s say you need to book a hotel. You’ll head to WayAway portal, click over to Booking.com to book your hotel, and you’ll receive your 10% cashback reward after your stay.

A signature feature of WayAway Plus is that Plus members receive actual cash, not points or miles. The money is sent directly to your PayPal account, meaning that you are able to spend it how and where you want.

So I’m sure you’re all wondering, okay but how much can I actually save with WayAway? Here comes the juicy stuff.

Cashback rates for users

• Flights: up to 5%
• Booking.com: up to 10%
• KiwiTaxi: 10%
• Tiqets: 7%
• Hostelworld: up to 6%
• Rentalcars.com: 5%
• GoCity: up to 3%
• Klook: up to 7%
• Viator: 6%
• AirHelp: 10%
• GetYourGuide: 8%

And here’s a peek at what the fine print looks like for one of the partners, GetYourGuide. Basically, you’ll get credited with cashback after you’ve completed your travel.

There’s also a maximum wait time before you’re able to cash out. From what I’ve seen, the number of days ranges from 30 days to 120 days (most of them hover around the 30 to 80-day mark).

It sounds great and all in theory, but how much can you realistically save on an actual trip?

Here is an example of how WayAway Plus works if you were to take a domestic trip within the USA:

• Round flight from Boston to Las Vegas for two ($245 x 2) = ~$25 cashback
• Round airport transfer for $130 = $13 cashback
• Hotel for a weekend for $962 = ~$96 cashback
• Car rental for $400 = ~$20 cashback
• Grand Canyon tour for $238 = ~$14 cashback

This comes out to $168 total cashback for just one trip, meaning that this lucky person saved over 7% using WayAway Plus!

Perks of WayAway Plus Membership

• Cashback rewards – offers up to 10% cashback on airline tickets, hotel bookings, car rentals, and other travel services.
• The best coverage in the US
• Great customer service –  includes 24/7 customer support for all travel-related questions, such as how to find the best car rental deals or even recommendations on local cuisine.
• An easy-to-use mobile app for iOS and Android – makes searching for travel deals effortless.
• Useful content (written by locals!) to help users plan their ideal trip

Honorable Mention: The 24/7 Travel Assistance

A huge benefit of your WayAway Plus membership is the 24/7 travel assistance that you get.

This means that if you encounter any issues or problems while traveling, you can contact the WayAway Plus team at any time, day or night, for assistance and support.

The travel assistance offered by WayAway Plus can include a wide range of services, from as small as travel planning and booking ideas to as large as travel emergencies. You can literally go to them for whatever you need!

The Travel Assistant can help users with the following questions: 

• Restaurant tips (e.g.: which restaurants serve your favorite dish)
• Best time to keep an eye out for cheap flights
• Visa restrictions, Vaccinations, Export/import rules
• Connections or “Where is it cheaper to get there/back from?”
• Currency exchange
• Guides/Find Entertainment/Hidden Gems
• Best/cheapest dates for this destination 
• National Holidays, what to do on these days/local events
• Travel with kids: What to take on the plane/where to go with kids
• Travel with pets: pet-friendly hotels, how to fly with pets
• Where to eat if you’re vegan (vegetarian) 
• The best places to shop 
• Wi-fi places (whether or not to buy a sim card, and the best places to buy them)
• Public transportation system
• Luggage storage questions

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Real-Life Example: Booking An International Trip To Rome, Italy

Above, I showed you a high-level example of what your savings could look like for a weekend trip within the US.

Let’s now walk through a real-life example to see how much you could realistically save if you were planning an international trip to Rome for 2 people.

First, we’re going to need to book flights. Let’s say you’re good with the first flight shown below. We’re going to need 2 flights for you and your travel buddy. Buying 2 of these flights with $7 cashback brings us to $14 cashback so far. Score.

Next up is hotels. For this example, we’re going to just look at 4 nights at one hotel. Let’s say after doing a bit of hotel research, we like Hotel Canada, so we’re going to book this one. At a total of $490 before taxes, that’s going to give us $44 cashback.

Side note, look how easy it is on the Booking.com site to see what kind of cashback you’d get for each hotel!

The cashback amount you’d get for each hotel is located just below the total cost of the room. Yet another reason why I trust Booking.com with all my lodging needs!

One thing to note here is that the cashback amount reflects a percentage of the cost of your reservation.

So if we clicked on the room options for Hotel Canada, you’ll see that if you upgrade to the option with breakfast included, selected a refundable room, or choose a more expensive room type, your cashback goes up because your total reservation price goes up.

Alright, now let’s book some tours! Let’s go with GetYourGuide for all our excursions and activities for this exercise.

With our four days in Rome, we’re going to try to fit in three fun activities for a party of two.

Let’s go with these because they sound fun:

• Colosseum Guided Tour with Roman Forum and Palatine Hill – $38.03 per person
• St. Peter’s Basilica Dome to Underground Grottoes Tour – $49.87 per person
• Pasta and Tiramisu Workshop with Dinner – $61.07 per person
• Total cost for per person = $149. Since we need to book two of each excursion, the total cost of our activities comes out to be $298.

Now because GetYourGuide offers a whopping 8% cashback on all tours and excursions, we’re going to be getting $23.84 cashback on our activity bookings!

Summing up all the cash back savings from this 4-day stint in Rome (the make-believe flights, hotels, and activities we booked) gets you a total of… $82 cashback!

That’s enough money to pay for at least 3-4 meals in Rome or even 1-2 Ryanair flights to another city/country!

And keep in mind, we only looked at 4 days in Rome. But people don’t just spend 4 days in Rome and head home. Chances are, you’re going to continue your journey to other cities before flying home. Well, guess what? Each of those new destinations is another chance for more cashback on travel!

While this exercise only looked at flights, hotels, and activities, there will be times when you need to make additional travel reservations such as rental cars and even travel safety (travel insurance).

You can rest assured that WayAway has travel partners in these categories too, so you can continue to save yourself money by using your WayAway Plus platform to book these things too.

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WayAway Plus: Pros and Cons

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The Bottom Line: Is WayAway Worth The Money?

Ultimately, WayAway Plus is for you if:

• You travel a lot
• You stay in hotels, hostels, etc.
• You spend money on paid excursions and activities
• You are the trip planner of your group (you can get the cashback from other people’s bookings!)

WayAway Plus may not be worth the money if:

• You travel pretty infrequently, like twice per year or less
• You mostly stay in Airbnbs
• You are looking for an ultra-quick way to cash out (due to the waiting time before cashing out)

Because I tend to travel no less than five times per year (domestically and internationally), the WayAway Plus membership is a complete steal for me. To pay off my 1-year membership, I’d only need to save $10 on travel bookings per trip.

Booking just 1-2 nights of hotel will easily save me $10 in cashback! Cashback on everything else needed for a trip is just gravy on top.

For a limited time only, you can buy an annual membership plan at an early-bird price of $49.99 (which breaks down to just a little over $4/month). Plus now you’ll get a free 7-day trial so you can try it out for yourself and cancel if you don’t find value in it.

You can sign up for a free 7-day trial AND 50% off your first year here.

DEAL ALERT: Use this link or promo code ‘travelswithelle’ you’ll be able to save an additional 10% off the price. Hop on it before the price doubles!

Try it for yourself below!

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Looking for more ways to save money on travel? Check out these posts:

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• 18 Advanced Ways to Save Money For Travel
• 13 Powerful Money-Saving Tips For Finding Cheap Flights
• Go City Cancun Explorer Pass Review: Is It Worth The Money?
• 42 Brilliant Ways To Travel Europe On A Budget
• How Much It Actually Cost Me To Travel For 3 Months: Complete Europe Trip Cost Breakdown