Our verdict
Best overall
GetYourGuide — for guided tours
The widest range of London walks, black cabs, bike tours and day trips, a written 24-hour free-cancellation default and price matching. Start here for anything with a guide.
Best value
Headout — for buses, boats and shows
Four hop-on hop-off brands, Uber Boat passes, afternoon-tea buses and 70+ West End shows in one place, with phone support in the UK.
Best private option
GetYourGuide — for private black cabs
We track 18 bookable black cab listings on GetYourGuide, most rated 4.8–5.0★. Headout and Tiqets have very little private inventory in London.
Skip it if
You need one museum or tower ticket
The Tower of London (£38), Westminster Abbey (£32) and St Paul’s (£27) cost the same on GetYourGuide as on the official sites. Booking direct gives you the venue’s own refund and rebooking rules.
GetYourGuide, Headout or Tiqets for London?
All three are marketplaces: they sell tours and tickets run by someone else. GetYourGuide’s terms say plainly that it acts as the supplier’s commercial agent and that your contract for the activity is with the tour company. Headout and Tiqets describe themselves the same way. That matters when something goes wrong — the platform handles your refund, but only within the rules the supplier set.
We earn a commission from all three when you book through our links. The price you pay is the same.
| GetYourGuide | Headout | Tiqets | |
|---|---|---|---|
| London range | 236 products we track, 226 bookable today | 449 London listings in its catalogue, 71 of them theatre | 34 products we track |
| Strongest at | Walking tours, black cabs, bike tours, cruises, day trips | Hop-on hop-off (four brands), afternoon-tea buses, Uber Boat, West End shows | Attraction tickets, Tower of London combos, city passes |
| Default cancellation | Full refund more than 24 h before, unless the listing says otherwise | Per listing; no refund unless the listing or supplier allows it | Only if the product page says so |
| Refund route | Original card, or GetYourGuide credit | Original card once the supplier pays Headout (aims to start within 7 days); credits if the card isn’t available | Request up to 28 days after the ticket date, where cancellable |
| Pay later | “Reserve now, pay later” on selected activities, charged 72 h before | “Book now, pay later” on some listings | — |
| Price promise | Pays the difference if the same activity is cheaper elsewhere (conditions apply) | — | — |
| Support | Help centre, phone, live chat, email; replies typically within 24 h | Advertises help 24/7, phone lines incl. a UK number, email | Customer service team via the site |
| App | Yes | Yes | Yes |
The London counts come from our partner feeds and the catalogue Headout publishes to affiliates; each platform sells more than we track.
What each one sells in London
GetYourGuide is the default for anything with a guide. The 226 London products we can book today carry over half a million reviews between them and average 4.6★. It has the deepest choice in private black cab tours, Jack the Ripper and Harry Potter walks, bike tours and coach day trips, and the most-reviewed Thames cruise we track (Westminster to Greenwich, 25,000+ reviews).
Headout leads on things with a timetable. It sells hop-on hop-off tickets for Big Bus, Golden Tours, City Sightseeing and The Original Tour, Tootbus’s night tour, plus Uber Boat passes, afternoon-tea buses and 71 theatre listings — the biggest named category in its London catalogue. It also sells its own city pass, compared on our London pass page. Its walking-tour and private range is thin.
Tiqets is a ticket shop: the Tower of London (in many combinations), Westminster Abbey, Tower Bridge, St Paul’s, The Shard, Warner Bros. Studio transfers and the London Pass. It has almost no guided walks or private tours. Tiqets doesn’t supply us a live price feed, so we link to it rather than quote its prices.
| Platform | From | Rating | Check price & dates |
|---|---|---|---|
| GetYourGuideLondon: Big Bus Hop-on, Hop-off with Optional River Cruise | £32 Lowest today | 4.2★ 5,139 | GetYourGuide → |
| HeadoutBig Bus: London Hop-on-Hop-off Bus Tour with Optional Thames River … | £32 | 4.3★ 2,002 | Headout → |
| Platform | From | Rating | Check price & dates |
|---|---|---|---|
| GetYourGuideLondon: Westminster Abbey Skip-the-Line Entry & Guided Tour | £75 Lowest today | 4.9★ 543 | GetYourGuide → |
| HeadoutWestminster Abbey Guided Tour with Skip-the-Line Entry | £79 | 4.8★ 227 | Headout → |
Prices: is one platform cheaper?
Rarely by much. On the big attractions, the platform price matched the official one when we checked: the London Eye from £29, the Tower of London £38, Westminster Abbey £32 and St Paul’s £27 on both GetYourGuide and the venues’ own sites. Big Bus, City Sightseeing and Golden Tours tickets were the same price on GetYourGuide and Headout. GetYourGuide’s terms say listed prices include taxes and fees in most cases, and Tiqets says its prices include applicable taxes.
So choose on terms, not price: the cancellation line, whether the option includes what you need (entry, cruise, evening tour), and how recent the reviews are.
Best-reviewed picks on GetYourGuide and Headout, checked today
London: Westminster Abbey, Big Ben & Buckingham Guided Tour
from £33
See on GetYourGuide
London: Sightseeing Black Cab Tour with Hotel Pick-up
from £318
See on GetYourGuide
London: The Original Jack the Ripper Walking Tour
from £22
See on GetYourGuide
Big Bus: London Hop-on-Hop-off Bus Tour with Optional Thames River Cruise & Evening Tour
from £32per person
See on Headout
Thames Sightseeing Cruise from Westminster to Greenwich
from £15per person
See on Headout
From London: Windsor Castle Half-Day Tour
from £57per person
See on HeadoutPrices and ratings checked 21 Oct 2026; they change daily.
Booking and cancelling with GetYourGuide
Book on the site or app, and the voucher arrives on your phone. Unless the listing states different rules, cancelling more than 24 hours before the start is a full refund and anything later is not. On “reserve now, pay later” listings your card is checked at booking and charged 72 hours before the activity. Changes and cancellations go through GetYourGuide, not the operator, and its customer service says it typically replies within 24 hours.
GetYourGuide: pros and cons
Pros
- The largest choice of guided London tours of the three, with verified reviews on every listing.
- A clear written default: free cancellation up to 24 hours ahead unless the listing says otherwise.
- Reserve now, pay later on selected tours, and a best-price promise.
- Customer service by phone, chat and email, and you can message the supplier directly.
Cons
- Supplier rules override the default, so “free cancellation” isn’t universal.
- A refund outside the policy is a request, not a right.
- Weaker than Headout on theatre and the full hop-on hop-off line-up.
- Many near-identical listings for the same sight, so comparing takes effort — which is why we built our London tours overview.
Verdict
GetYourGuide: 4.3 / 5. For guided tours in London it’s the platform to check first: the widest range, the most reviews and the clearest cancellation default of the three. It loses marks for the number of look-alike listings and for supplier exceptions to its refund rule. Use Headout for buses, boats, shows and its own pass; use Tiqets for attraction tickets, especially Tower of London combinations; and for a single museum or cathedral ticket, the official site costs the same.
Questions people ask
Is GetYourGuide legit for London tours?
Can I cancel a GetYourGuide booking?
Is Headout or GetYourGuide cheaper in London?
Are Tiqets tickets refundable?
What about Viator?
Do you earn money from these platforms?
Sources
- GetYourGuide — General Terms and Conditions (cancellation, reserve now pay later, price matching, customer service) (checked 21 Oct 2026)
- Headout — Cancellations and booking modifications (checked 21 Oct 2026)
- Headout — Help & support (checked 21 Oct 2026)
- Tiqets — Terms & Conditions (checked 21 Oct 2026)
- Historic Royal Palaces — Tower of London ticket prices (checked 21 Oct 2026)
- Westminster Abbey — tickets (checked 21 Oct 2026)
- St Paul's Cathedral — sightseeing tickets (checked 21 Oct 2026)
Written and checked by the Private Tours London desk