PayPal Adds Hotel Booking Feature to App, Powered by Selfbook
PayPal is expanding its app capabilities by introducing hotel booking, thanks to a new partnership with hotel payment platform Selfbook. This move aims to simplify travel planning by letting users search, filter, and reserve hotels directly within the PayPal app.
Through the app’s Offers section, users can now look for accommodations based on travel dates, number of guests, and more. Hotels that use Selfbook’s payment infrastructure will appear in the listings, although it’s unclear if all of Selfbook’s catalog will be available at launch.
Once a booking is selected, travelers can pay using PayPal, take advantage of exclusive in-app discounts, or choose Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) for eligible properties.
According to PayPal, internal data shows an 84% increase in travel-related transactions among users leveraging its payment tools. The feature rollout reflects PayPal’s broader strategy to diversify its commerce offerings and enhance customer retention by embedding more services in-app.
In return, Selfbook will integrate PayPal’s enterprise payment suite into its checkout systems—even outside of PayPal—and handle credit card processing for hotel clients. Selfbook is also enabling PayPal payments inside Perplexity, an AI-powered platform that launched hotel search and booking via chat earlier this year.
Selfbook CEO Khalid Meniri emphasized the convenience of this integration:
“Paying for a hotel has always been fragmented—search one place, book another, pay somewhere else. This partnership merges all steps into one seamless flow, improving guest experience and giving hotels direct engagement, better margins, and brand control.”
This collaboration signals a shift in digital travel booking, bringing together AI, payments, and real-time user engagement in one streamlined app experience.
