A lot of reviews would have you believe that Omio is a great way to book travel. And Omio is certainly an honest booking site (it’s not a scam, your e-tickets from Omio will work just fine), but it’s definitely not the best way to find the trip tickets at the best prices in most cases.
We’ve tested Omio and other booking sites for hundreds of voyages and followed the major players for years. So here’s an in-depth look at Omio (formerly GoEuro), the problems with this train/flight/bus booking site, what it does well, and the sites that we actually use instead when we’re booking our travels.
We encourage low-carbon travel and focus mainly on train travel, especially in Europe, but we’ll also discuss flight and bus booking options—important features of Omio.
Omio Quick Review: Easy-to-Use, but with Poor Search and Routing Functions
But unfortunately Omio does not find very good routes, and cannot program complex trips with changes of buses and trains. This means that you often end up paying more for travel tickets than you should for a given destination. Other platforms we’ve reviewed do much better at finding cheap train and bus fares from all operators and intelligently saving on trip time and transfers.
In a Nutshell
Omio is fine; it is an easy and legitimate but rather limited platform. You will likely want to compare it to other options to get better deals and with less hassle.
For trains and buses in Europe we generally find cheaper tickets and better routes with Trainline. In the USA, we’d just book with Amtrak directly.
For buses only, BusBud is also great.
For flights anywhere in the world, we get better results with Kiwi, Kayak, or Google Flights. For more details, you can check out our discussion below of the Omio alternatives.
Where Can You Go with Omio?
Omio can find you travel tickets for much of Europe, as well as in a more limited way for other parts of the world.
Omio’s pages detailing the airplane, train, ferry, and bus operators it works with are rather vague about whether they really offer each listed operator’s tickets or are simply describing their services. Through trial and error we found that it works for some and not for others.
For example, since France’s budget train Ouigo appears on those pages, you might assume that a search for train tickets on Omio in France would show you Ouigo options when available—and this would save you a lot of money.
Unfortunately, in our searches Omio does not show Ouigo options in France, even where we know that they exist. It does show Ouigo in Spain when relevant. But this hit-and-miss approach is a bit annoying.
For example, we ran a search for train tickets between Paris and Lyon, and Omio showed train options operated by both the French SNCF and by the Italian rail company Trenitalia, which is good to know (a lot of people book their tickets only with the SNCF and miss that later option). But Omio did not show the budget train option for that route, so booking with Omio would have meant us paying nearly double what we needed to.
How Does Omio Work?
To use Omio, you type your departure and destination points in the search bar on the main page, and deselect “accommodation” unless you also want to see those ads. Train, bus, flight, and (if applicable) ferry options will show up in your search results if Omio covers those routes.
In some cases you are offered the opportunity to indicate seating preferences, though this functionality may be more limited than with other booking platforms or booking directly with the transport operator.
Omio tickets are e-tickets that you can show on your phone when checking in or entering your transport. You will generally also need to carry identification.
Tickets on Omio can be paid for with Visa, Mastercard, Maestro, Diners Club / Discover, Carte Bancaire, JCB, UnionPay, PayPal, Apple Pay, Google Pay, Alipay, Direct Bank Transfers, Sofort, iDEAL, Przelewy24, and Klarna.
If you are offered to pay in your own currency or the currency of the country you are travelling in, it is generally better to pay in the other currency and you’ll get a better deal on the conversion from your payment card issuer, rather than what Omio is offering you. A booking fee is usually tacked on at the end.
For most customer service issues, you will need to deal with the transport operator itself and not with Omio.
We’ve heard multiple complaints of long wait times with Omio customer service and these are repeated in many forums and reviews. Worse, Omio customer service reps can do little more than refer you to the transport operators themselves in many cases. Refund forms can be a hassle to deal with and many people give up.
The Advantages of Booking Travel with Omio
- Omio’s key advantage is that it shows, for a given search, flight, bus, and train options side-by-side so it can be very quick to decide which mode to take.
- The interface is uncluttered and actually works. Unlike many national European train operators’ sites, there aren’t lots of error messages or poor translations.
- There is a nice map to the right of search results to give you an idea of where you’re going.
- I particularly like that the search results are labeled with the “fastest”, “cheapest”, and “2nd fastest” and so on, although sometimes there are so many results listed in a cluttered way so it can be hard to find the best one. Competing platforms discussed later can be better about leading you right to the better results.
- Omio can sell you train trips within Portugal and Sweden, two countries that alternative train booking platforms fail to cover. It also shows all train operators in Spain, although it cannot combine them intelligently or quickly filter results to the best one for a given trip.
- The search works in all major currencies, payment methods, and languages. The English version is good—much better than the English on most national European train websites.
The Main Disadvantages
- Omio’s key disadvantage is that it doesn’t actually have a smart booking engine that finds ways to combine different train options (or bus, or plane, or combinations of these). So whereas the Omio alternatives we list in the next section can find you options for crossing Europe between different national and private train operators, Omio will come up with nothing and just suggest that you take a flight. But there may very well be excellent and quick train options! Omio is more like a mindless vending machine spitting out tickets than it is a real booking platform with a brain.
- Other booking alternatives listed below also have much broader coverage of train, bus, and plane operators and so tend to find better deals.
- Omio’s booking fee is usually a bit higher than these alternatives as well, though it varies. The booking fee doesn’t show up until the final screen, which is frustrating but a standard practice for such platforms.
- The pricing for the tickets themselves is fair; it reflects the dynamic pricing for operators of planes, trains, and buses. It is the same as you’d get on other platforms or buying directly from the operators themselves, but you may end up paying more than you should because Omio will not show you all of the options; it can’t because it either can’t combine routes (the first disadvantage above) or its coverage isn’t broad enough (the second disadvantage).
- Omio automatically opens a window that tries to sell you lodging for wherever you’re searching to travel to, which is annoying.
- Omio does not straightforwardly communicate which operators it can actually sell tickets for and when and how much its booking fees will be in different scenarios.
- There are a lot of complaints online about Omio’s customer service.
Alternatives to Omio for Train, Bus, and Flight Booking
The following sites, in our experience, provide better cheaper and better results for train trips:
- Trainline: This is the website that nearly always finds us the best deals on train tickets in Europe; it has a very smart routing engine and the broadest coverage of train operators. Like Omio, it also shows buses, but—and here, it is much better than Omio—Trainline can find very useful bus+train combo routes. We have a full review of Trainline as well.
- Rail Europe: This is a similar website that usually comes in second to Trainline in our tests, but once in a while finds us a good deal. As we said in our review, Rail Europe can be worth checking and is certainly more useful for most train booking than Omio.
- Individual train operators: While their websites are at times full of errors, badly translated, and complicated, if you know what you’re doing it is possible forgo these booking platforms and buy train tickets from the national operators individually (such as SNCF Connect (France), Deutsche Bahn (Germany), Trenitalia (Italy), Renfe (Spain), etc.) as well as their competitors for each country (FlixTrain (Germany and Sweden), Italo (Italy), Iryo (Spain), etc.). The problems with these sites is that they don’t generally show competitors, so unless you really know what you’re doing, you miss out on some good train options that Trainline or Rail Europe can point you to (or even Omio for that matter). For the USA, there’s no particular value in using Omio to book Amtrak trains rather than just booking on Amtrak directly.
Omio is actually quite worthwhile if you’re sure you want to take a bus (and not a train) in Europe, but we would also always search these two sites to compare bus deals:
- Trainline Bus Search: While buses also show up as an option in Trainline’s main searches, with this link you can search specifically for bus tickets only.
- BusBud: Also very broad coverage of world bus options and a useful website.
Finally, when there’s just no way around it and we have to fly, we prefer to use these flight search options, which tend to deliver much smarter and cheaper options than Omio does:
- Kiwi: This flight booking platform has an interesting nomad feature that can help you determine the order of your destinations for a multi-leg journey to get the best deals. There’s nothing else quite like it. There are also “travel hacks”, which must be used with care, but can allow you to get cheaper flights through self-transfer (between airlines), throwaway ticketing (not taking a return flight), and hidden cities (using a layover as your destination, traveling without checked baggage).
- Kayak: A classic that searches everywhere and allows multi-city and broad flexible date searching to narrow down when to go where if you’re very flexible.
- Google Flights: Very broad coverage of the world’s flight options with some good flexible search options.
And Is Omio Right for Booking Your Trip?
A lot of people use Omio and like it just fine. But we think they’re missing out and would often be better served by the alternatives above, especially for trains, which are so lovely, and which Omio could perhaps lead you to believe are not a viable option for certain routes and times when in fact they are cheaper/better.
That said, it’s certainly worth checking various booking websites before dropping money on a specific trip.
If Omio gets you a deal you didn’t get anywhere else, or we’re missing some key aspect of this website’s advantages (or problems), drop a note in our comments and we’ll be delighted to check it out and make updates to this review as warranted.
The easy-to-use
Terrible experience with the specific company. I booked my train tickets from Barcelona to Madrid through Omio company for the 15th of August. The train company I was traveling with was Iryo. Omio did not notify my for the change in the early departure of my train therefore my family and I lost our train and had to pay 380 euros for a one way train ticket for a family of four! Since then I have been contacting both companies and one is blaming the other as to who was responsible to contact me regarding the change in time of my tickets. Keep in mind that in the Omio app my digital tickets still have the wrong time on them. This incident and the fact that I had to pay so much money for 4 one way tickets literally ruined my holiday. They are giving me fake excuses and automated email messages and blaming Iryo whereas Iryo insists that Omio had in fact been informed about the change in time and that it was their responsibility to contact me. Of course I have all the necessary official documents that support my claim and they still haven’t proceeded with a refund. This is the first time in my life I have witnessed such unprofessionalism!!!
I think they are big scam, i book with them a train ticket from Almeria to Madrid, and they charged me, I didnt receive any booking, when i tried to contact them, they have no call center, when i checked the official website of Renfe, there was no train from Almeria to Madrid at 3:30. be aware. I have all the proves and emails with them.
They do have customer support that you can reach on through their site and I urge you to do so. If you haven’t received your tickets by email and you have been charged, they should be able to straighten it out. It’s certainly worked well for us and for many others, even if it’s not our favorite.
Omio gave me incorrect information, forcing me to buy new tickets. Now they refuse a refund. Blame game, zero accountability. Total joke of a company.
the same happen to me.
I had a terrible experience with Omio. I booked transfers between Verona airport and Vicenza. I paid the money and they sent me the tickets by email. The ticket information was very vague. It didn’t tell me where the pick up points where or the bus number or colour. I contacted them and they just kept saying the information was in the booking confirmation email. IT WASN’T. Fearing I would miss my transfers, I canceled my booking which cost me 20% of the price. I will never use Omio again. Terrible experience and waste of time and money.
I booked with GoOpti instead. A bit more expensive but far better experience. All information was provided and totally stress free.
Damien Carroll
Absolutely horrible service. Bought return train trip to Madrid.omio didn’t provide any information that trip was cancelled by renfe company. I payed special inchurance fee for any cancellation problems. Some how… inchurance was charged , but cancelled .
Now no full return
No trip. No money back guarantee. Stress , as no service at all.
Stay away. Fraud.
AVOID OMIO TO BUY TRAIN TICKETS FOR EASTERN EUROPE.
On a recent trip to Eastern Europe, we bought 2 train tickets from Budapest to Prague. Total cost $400.00 CAD. We ran into problems because of the vague wording ‘fine print’ on the travel documents, so we had to re-purchase the tickets thru the Hungarian railway system. The cost was $132.00. With OMIO we paid 3 times more than the tickets were worth. We were scammed. Deal with a company other than OMIO if you want to get value for your money.
Never Again!
I will never again book with Omio!
I paid for a train journey in Austria from Mallnitz oberverlach to klagenfurt airport including 2 reserved seats.
I received a confirmation with a booking reference number a link to tickets – which did not provide the tickets ! Nor the reserved seats. Only the description of the journey
I tried to contact customer services- but you get an unhelpful ai chat box that has no interest in resolving issue !
I asked for the tickets and the reserved seats and it referred me to the link that did not have the tickets, only a description of the journey which is unhelpful ly labelled as This is not a ticket
I asked to speak to a normal person-no luck
I asked to raise a complaint-no luck
I asked for a refund – the message reads not refundable!
Please please avoid using Omio for booking any travel whatsoever, spread the message via social media.
it happen to me almost the same thing, even work they got paid for a ticket that never existed when i checked in the official website they was no train at all. please never use Omio, big Scam
I bought a ticket via Omio from Munich to Lindau for a flixbus travel. The bus did not come to the station. I tried to get a refund, but the both companies are just sending me to one another.
They ruined my plans to come within short from one place to another, I had to buy a railway ticket. And for sure lost time. And money. No recommendations from me both for Omio and flixbus.
Very very bad company , their customers service are the worst , just an automatic reply , they canceled my bus without telling me or informing me
I bought a ferry ticket from Crete(Souda, Chania) to Serifos, via Milos. The whole trip was supposed to last 3-4 hours, but it lasted 16 hours and I had to change to Santorini and Milos before I go to Serifos. The ferry company was the same for all the islands and they changed the schedule without informing Omio or Omio didn’t bother to maintain contact. Normally you have to be at the harbour 1 hour before departure. We were at the harbour 1hour and 20 minutes earlier and they told us that we should have been informed because the bus to Rethymno left 10minutes ago. They changed harbour(1 hour away) and nobody told us!! I paid 110 euros for a taxi and manged to get the ferry. Then they unloaded us in Santorini for 3 hours with no water and 40C. Then we took a ferry to Milos. Another 3 hours with no water. We left at 6:40 in the morning and we arrived at our hotel in Serifos at 22:30. We lost an entire of our holiday and the car booking(40 euros) for a day. This inhumane journey also had an impact on our mental health. Omio blames the ferry provider and the ferry provider Omio. Bottom line is that Omio never informed us and they don’t take responsibility. If you feel adventurous and you don’t like your life buy with Omio.
DO NOT EVER USE OMIO TO PURCHASE YOUR TICKETS!
We needed to purchase our tickets travelling from Valencia to Alicante, Spain. The purchase was for 3 people on a Saturday. I know for a fact that I have checked the date in my calendar prior to selecting it in the date options. I would like for everyone to understand that we travel a lot every year, so purchasing train tickets or any other tickets has never been an issue and NEVER in my life have I made a date mistake. I remember clearly checking the date. Well, to my surprise the tickets Omio issued were for a train leaving a week later! We found this out at the train station about 10 minutes before the train was leaving. The only option was to purchase new tickets for additional 135 Euros at the train station. Omio, customer service has been NONEXISTENT. I did contacted them for a refund immediately, because the tickets were unused and they have only directed me to their purchase policy, avoiding any responsibility on their part. There is no one to speak to, don’t even bother trying to call. ZERO CUSTOMER SERVICE. Omio takes your money and that’s where it ends.
I cannot recommend Omio as a good supplier of train tickets.
If you are considering these folks, think twice and walk away.
For a recent holiday in Europe, I had the misfortune to buy train tickets from Omio.
One or two days prior to departure time, the train was cancelled by the train company SJ of Sweden. C’est la vie, I scrambled and booked another train with Omio to get to my destination.
Upon return home after my holiday was over, I went back to Omio, seeking a refund of the cancelled train.
One of the tell-tall signs of a poor company is when they bail when there’s a problem. Omio bailed. They would not supply a refund, saying go to the train company to get the refund. Quite frankly poor on Omio’s part. But I did go back to the train company, as I had no other choice. SJ said yes, they would supply a refund for their portion of the ticket price – of course not the full price of the ticket I paid to Omio. But, SJ would only refund through a complicated bank transfer to my account involving me having to supply sensitive banking information to SJ which I am still working on and not entirely comfortable with, 5 weeks and counting after the end of my holiday.
SJ quite frankly should not be working with Omio, because they are a poor vendor, and it also reflects on SJ.
Further on Omio, as mentioned, SJ is only offering their portion of the train ticket refund. Since Omio is reselling the SJ ticket, Omio is not refunding the balance of the ticket price I paid, which is comprised of their added margin for the resale of the ticket and their service fee. You’d think that their service fee might also include servicing a refund, especially since I rebooked with them to get on another train to my destination.
Don’t use these guys. They’re a rip-off!
GH (Montreal/Canada)
Thanks for sharing this! I hope it’s of use to others. I’ve heard of similar problems with Omio.
Similar things happen with Trainline and often you can get the refund through Trainline without hassle.
But in general this is always a risk with any European train operator. Sometimes tickets are cancelled and there’s no good way to get refunds in some cases.
If you have paid on a credit or bank card you can document your efforts to get a reimbursement and submit it to the card company and they will often facilitate the refund.
You are so right! My daughter has just lost over AUD 900.00 because the date was incorrect we don’t use those tickets until 03-/5/25 they were issued for travel yesterday 11/02/25 we don’t leave Australia until 29/05/25!
I will send a message around Australia on FB to share dreadful company.
I reserved ferry tickets for a trip between Salerno & Amalfi. It told me that my tickets were refundable up to 3 days in advance. When I opened the confirmation email, it shows me that my tickets were non-refundable. It also forgot to mention that you would need to get to the ticket booth 60 minutes prior to departure, which is something that I was unaware of until after the purchase. I then proceeded to contact customer service and was on hold for over an hour until I finally decided to give up. I’m a bit disappointed with Omio and I wouldn’t recommend it for multiple trips.
Thanks for sharing the experience with us and our readers, and sorry to hear it! Amalfi is lovely; I hope you’re still able to go. And either way, try to learn a bit of Neapolitan… 🙂