Travel
Fare Finders
Fare Finders | Tips for getting better fares
October 2017 update:
How to Choose an Air Travel Search Site - The New York Times Jan 2014
"The sites you've certainly heard of - Travelocity, Expedia, Kayak, Orbitz - were all dependably similar, their lowest offerings rarely differing more than a few dollars.
Most of the bigger sites (notable exception: Expedia) offer to find you cheaper flights if you're willing to fly one to three days earlier or later. but these days their systems seem inflexible, and the resulting grids dizzying. Much better are the far more intuitive bar graphs you get on Momondo and Google Flight Explorer.
Some sites are particularly pleasant to use, in both superficial and substantive ways: Hipmunk's graphic displays of flights and layovers; Kayak's input simplicity; Momondo's clear presentation of great information about options. The Best Online Travel Sites 2017 | Top Ten Reviews - Best for Airfare - Orbitz.
The 5 Best Airfare Sites of 2017 - Reviews.com - Priceline, Cheap Tickets, Kayak ,
Fare Finders 1999
(From top 100 e-commerce sites PC Computing July '99. Travel sites are the top e-commerce category. They will account for 25% of the $8 M in online shopping revenue this year.
25 Best Travel Sites at kiplinger.com Oct. 2006
- Aggregators.
- - Kayak.com fetches fares (plus hotel rates and other travel products, if you ask) from more than 120 sources. Click on the best deal, and Kayak.com will send you to a site where you can buy the ticket.
- - SideStep.com
- Fares for Southwest and ATA aren't shown on Kayak.com and most other Web sites. But at Southwest.com, you can check fares for both Southwest and its partner airline ATA.
- Farecast.com predicts whether fares on most domestic routes will go up or down.
- LowesTravel.com offers international tickets on more than 60 airlines and generally a broader selection than rival sites.
In a 2005 USA Today article "SideStep displayed flights and fares from 18 airlines; Orbitz displayed 13, Kayak 10, and MSN Expedia and Travelocity only six each."
MyTravelGuide.com/ consolidates searches from other sites
Farechase.yahoo.com, Kayak, Mobissimo, Qixo, SideStep or CheapFlights.com do the same thing.
AirFareWatchDog.com will notify you when rates change.
Ranked according to rataings ([Score = 9-25] by Mobile Computing & Communications (defunct now) Nov. 2001
* - Can bid on tickets.
- Orbitz [20]
- Travelocity [22]
- MSN Expedia [25]
- * HotWire.com [15] Gave lowest price, but must confirm before you get airline or times. (last minute rates)
- * PriceLine Can bid on price.
- www.airtkt.com - Last minute
- Farechase @ Yahoo
- Biztravel.com [19] offers the kinds of things that are important to business travelers. In addition to lowest fares, favorite airline and upgrade availability, the site will give you wireless pager alerts with your flight status one hour before it's supposed to leave.
- Trip.com [18]
- Qixo [17] bills itself as a discount travel site, but really it's a price-comparison site as well.
Qixo surfs other travel sites, including Travelocity, and pulls together a list of the best fares.
The results are good, but it can be very slow.
- OneTravel.com [16]
- lowestfare.com [13]
- Lonley Planet
- jetBlue
- FareChase is a price-comparison site. It will scour as many as 20 sites for cheap fares. It was easy to use and I was able to go directly to where I needed to buy the ticket.
- LastMinuteTravel might get better use from the rest of my staff, who sometimes wait until the last minute to do things. Airlines are always posting cheap fares to fill up an under-booked flight. Find them here. And when someone gets a wild hair, they can hit "anywhere" in the destination search box and see the cheapest place to get to right now.
- LastMinute.com
- CheapTickets [9]
- SkyAuction
- Cheap Flights - Find Cheap Airline Tickets with Skyscanner
- Cheap Airline Tickets, Airfares & Discount Air Tickets | CheapAir
- Hopper - When to Fly and Buy
European sites like https://www.travelprice.be/ often return better rates than US sites.
Best for Car Rental: HotWire.com , PriceLine, Orbitz
See also Car Rental
Best for Hotel: HotWire.com
Hotels.com
sidestep.com will search other travel sites for you.
Best for hotels: Hotelguide.com
Tips for getting better fares See Best Fares
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