Is BKNG a good stock to buy? We came across a bullish thesis on Booking Holdings Inc. on Nikhs’s Substack. In this article, we will summarize the bulls’ thesis on BKNG. Booking Holdings Inc.’s share was trading at $165.84 as of June 5th. BKNG’s trailing and forward P/E were 21.87 and 15.82 respectively according to Yahoo Finance.
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Booking Holdings Inc., together with its subsidiaries, provides online and traditional travel and restaurant reservations and related services in the United States and internationally. BKNG’s 1Q26 earnings reinforced a structural bull case centered on its shift from travel intermediary to execution-layer infrastructure beneath global travel. The company is increasingly positioning itself across payments, settlement, refunds, service, fraud management, and trip orchestration, arguing that while AI may reshape discovery, the monetizable value remains in execution.
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Q1 results were resilient despite geopolitical disruption in the Middle East, with revenue of $5.5 billion growing 16% and adjusted EBITDA rising 19%. Room nights increased 6%, or roughly 8% excluding conflict-related softness, highlighting underlying demand strength. However, near-term guidance decelerated, with Q2 room nights guided to 2–4% and full-year revenue growth revised to high single digits, reflecting volatility rather than structural deterioration.
Strategic indicators strengthened: merchant gross bookings reached 72% of total, mobile mix in high 50% range, Genius high-tier members majority of room nights, Connected Trip low-double-digit penetration. These metrics support a compounding network around Booking’s execution stack. The core debate is whether AI agents become demand interface that extracts tolls or whether Booking captures durable economics beneath them.
Early evidence, including Agoda’s double-digit reduction in customer service costs via AI and rising direct demand mix, supports the latter. Consensus valuation near $230 implies meaningful upside from ~$167 levels if execution stabilizes and Q2 marks a trough. Longer-term bull case envisions Connected Trip scaling to 20–25% penetration and merchant mix rising toward 80%, driving a rerating from travel operator to transaction infrastructure platform. Stock remains underappreciated given its growing execution infrastructure role in an AI-shaped travel economy.
Previously, we covered a bullish thesis on Booking Holdings Inc. (BKNG) by Jimmy Investor in April 2025, which highlighted travel rebound, OTA dominance, and AI-driven personalization supporting strong margins and cash flows. BKNG’s stock price has depreciated by approximately 14.31% (adjusted for stock split) since our coverage. Nikhs shares a similar view but emphasizes post-earnings shift toward execution-layer infrastructure, AI-enabled operations, and transaction economics rather than cyclical travel recovery and valuation re-rating alone.
Booking Holdings Inc. is not on our list of the 40 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 95 hedge fund portfolios held BKNG at the end of the first quarter which was 109 in the previous quarter. While we acknowledge the risk and potential of BKNG as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that some AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns and doing so within a shorter time frame. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than BKNG and that has 10,000% upside potential, check out our report about this cheapest AI stock.
Disclosure: None.
