Short answer: the star averages barely separate India’s travel booking sites — 3.34 to 3.48 across five brands — but the one-star share does. MakeMyTrip draws a one-star review from 19.5% of reviewers, against 14.5% for Ixigo. That is a 5.0-point gap, and it is the single most useful number on this page.
Averages compress. If you want to know how likely you are to have a booking go badly wrong, read the bottom of the distribution, not the middle of it.
IRCTC vs MakeMyTrip vs ixigo vs Goibibo vs Yatra: the numbers
| Brand | Reviews | Average | 5★ | 4★ | 3★ | 2★ | 1★ | Positive (4–5★) | Negative (1–2★) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ixigo | 145 | 3.48 | 51 (35.2%) | 31 (21.4%) | 21 (14.5%) | 21 (14.5%) | 21 (14.5%) | 56.6% | 29% |
| IRCTC | 200 | 3.45 | 70 (35.0%) | 40 (20.0%) | 30 (15.0%) | 30 (15.0%) | 30 (15.0%) | 55% | 30% |
| Goibibo | 147 | 3.45 | 51 (34.7%) | 30 (20.4%) | 22 (15.0%) | 22 (15.0%) | 22 (15.0%) | 55.1% | 29.9% |
| Yatra | 136 | 3.38 | 46 (33.8%) | 26 (19.1%) | 21 (15.4%) | 19 (14.0%) | 24 (17.6%) | 52.9% | 31.6% |
| MakeMyTrip | 118 | 3.34 | 39 (33.1%) | 24 (20.3%) | 16 (13.6%) | 16 (13.6%) | 23 (19.5%) | 53.4% | 33.1% |
The one-star share is the number that matters
Travel bookings have an unusually expensive failure mode. A cancelled hotel that was never actually confirmed, a fare that changes at the payment step, a refund that takes six weeks — these do not produce a three-star review. They produce a one-star review. So the proportion of one-star reviews is a reasonable proxy for how often a booking goes properly wrong.
Ranked by that measure, lowest one-star share first:
- Ixigo — 14.5% one-star, from 145 reviews
- IRCTC — 15% one-star, from 200 reviews
- Goibibo — 15% one-star, from 147 reviews
- Yatra — 17.6% one-star, from 136 reviews
- MakeMyTrip — 19.5% one-star, from 118 reviews
Booking trains is a different problem from booking flights
For Indian rail, IRCTC is not one option among several — it is the source of truth. Every other app that sells you a train ticket is ultimately transacting against IRCTC, so the aggregators compete on interface, payment reliability and the quality of their refund handling, not on inventory. Reviews of the aggregators reflect that: complaints are about the middle layer, not the seat.
For flights and hotels the picture reverses — inventory and cancellation policy genuinely differ between aggregators, and that is where the widest gaps in our one-star data show up.
What to do before you book
- Screenshot the fare and the cancellation policy at the moment you pay. Fare-change and policy-change disputes are the most common one-star complaints in this category and they are unwinnable without evidence.
- Confirm hotel bookings directly with the property before you travel. An aggregator confirmation is not the same as a room being held.
- For rail, book on IRCTC directly when you can. Aggregator convenience fees buy you a nicer interface, not better inventory or faster refunds.
- Pay with a method that supports chargeback for anything expensive and non-refundable.
How we calculated this
Every figure on this page comes from 746 published reviews held on 7review.one as of 25 August 2026 (IST): Ixigo (145), IRCTC (200), Goibibo (147), Yatra (136), MakeMyTrip (118). We count only reviews with published status — pending and removed reviews are excluded. Averages are the arithmetic mean of the star value, rounded to two decimals. “Positive” means 4 or 5 stars; “negative” means 1 or 2 stars. We do not weight, curate or hand-pick reviews, and we publish the full star distribution rather than only the average, because the average alone hides how polarised a brand is.
Frequently asked questions
Which travel booking site is most reliable in India?
On 7review.one, Ixigo leads on both measures — the highest average at 3.48 stars and the lowest share of one-star reviews at 14.5%, across 145 published reviews. The averages across all five brands sit inside a 0.14-star band, so the one-star share is the more useful discriminator.
Is it better to book train tickets on IRCTC or on an app like ixigo or MakeMyTrip?
IRCTC holds the actual inventory; every aggregator books against it. Aggregators can be more pleasant to use and sometimes bundle insurance or instant-refund products, but they add a convenience fee and a second party to any refund dispute. If you are comfortable with the IRCTC interface, booking direct removes a layer.
Is MakeMyTrip safe to use?
It is a large, established operator, and on our data it averages 3.34 stars from 118 published reviews — the lowest of the five brands compared here, driven by a 19.5% one-star share. Most of those reviews concern refunds and cancellation handling rather than fraud.
Why are travel booking sites rated so much lower than other categories?
Because the cost of a failure is high and the recovery is slow. A refund that takes six weeks generates a one-star review even from a customer whose previous ten bookings were fine. Categories with cheap, fast recovery from mistakes rate higher almost regardless of how often they make them.
Do these ratings include hotel bookings as well as flights?
Yes. Reviews on 7review.one are left against the brand rather than a single product line, so a brand’s score mixes flight, hotel, rail and package experiences. That is worth remembering when a brand is strong in one line and weak in another.
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