Athens airport to hotel?

I’ve not used them, but I have used Welcome Pickups, and have always been happy with them. I’m guessing booking.com is just the middleman, and will book your ride with a company who does that, so why not go straight to the company that does it? It would probably be cheaper.

Anita above was reading my mind and stated everything I wanted to write.

Isn't Welcome Pickups a middleman too?

Yes, Welcome Pickups is a middleman, but they're based in Athens and their only job is to book taxis and nothing else, taxis that you can easily just grab directly at the airport.

By using Booking.com, you are simply adding another extra middleman since Booking.com won't be in direct contact with the taxi driver but will go through an middleman like WP.

I only use WP in Athens when public transportation schedules don't work out. Otherwise, I've always either taked a cab from the stand or used Welcome Pickups, and everything has always gone smoothly with friendly, English-speaking drivers.

When we flew into Athens last year, we just walked out of the airport and took a cab from the official taxi queue - 3 of us plus luggage, no pre-arrangements and no problems.

We use booking.com to make many of our refundable reservations for accommodations, but I would not use them to book flights - I am too much of a control freak and heard too many horror stories about booking through any 3rd party service—I book directly with airline. HOWEVER, last year when flying into New York, booking.com offered us free transportation from JFK to our hotel in Greenpoint Brooklyn. We booked it with the philosophy of “if it works, great! If it does not, we will take an Uber.” It worked flawlessly, communication with the car service was excellent and while in the car riding to our hotel I checked and the same ride would have cost us around $140.

So, the above was a long way of saying I would book via booking.com if it is free and be ready to take a cab if it does not work out - you then would not be out any money. I would not PAY for it via booking; however, I as illustrated, I am terrible control freak…