Online Sites for Flight Searches
To get a feel for how some of the online travel deal websites function, here is an example of a search for flights from Orlando International Airport to JFK in New York. The flights searched are from the Friday before Christmas to the day after Christmas, with Christmas falling on a Tuesday. The flights were searched about a month before the trip. Let’s take a look at some of these web sites using this example.
Travel Aggregators
Kayak.com
Kayak has a nice easy to use interface, with quick impressive results returned. It shows you the sites it searched, including Southwest, though they do not fly into JFK at the time of this search. When Southwest does fly the route, it gives you the flight itinerary, but you have to go to their site for pricing information.
On the results page, you have the option to select a “matrix” tab that quickly shows you the carriers with nonstop flights. Another tab entitled “chart” provides graphical data on the rise and fall of prices over the prior 90 days, and the best fare trend for the month. This is very cool information that can help you nail down the best travel deal!
Kayak’s best price was $239 from Delta. (Interestingly, when I refreshed the data about 30 minutes following the initial search, the price jumped from $219 to $239. This is a fluid environment, and prices can change just like that!)
Nextag.com
Nextag has an easy to use interface, and list the sites that it searches simultaneously. In this example, it searched seven web sites, and shows you the carriers and stops in the flight as well. It returned the lowest price from cheaptickets.com at $243 (Delta).
Sidestep.com
SideStep has a nice, easy to use interface, with nonstop flights readily visible. It also has an easy to use SmartSort section to sort the results. It also features a fare tracker that can keep you abreast of price changes and low fares of your selected route. The lowest price in this example was $239 from Delta.
Cheapflights.com
At Cheapflights, you initially enter the route that you are interested in, and it takes you to a page showing the best flight deals on that route, but not specific to your particular date. This page gives you the rock bottom price for the route, and can serve as a baseline for your results.
From there, you have to click on “search by date” to refine your search. Once your dates on entered, you do not get results, rather you get links to eight other sites to follow (in this example - Kayak, JetBlue, Expedia, Orbitz, CheapTickets, Ultimate Fares, Priceline, CheapAir). Clicking the link inputs all of your information, and the results on those sites appear. This is a useful way to quickly check several aggregators from one location.
Mobissimo.com
Again, Mobissimo provides an easy to use interface that pulls up a lot of results. The results are returned with the lowest price first, and can be quickly be filtered for the nonstop flights. The lowest fare show was $222 from CheapTickets, but when clicking through the taxes and fees were shown on the CheapTickets site bringing the price of this ticket to $242.
Farechase.com by Yahoo
Another nice and easy to use interface that shows you the sites searched on the results page (in this example, 10 other sites). The lowest fare listed was $202, but it was into Newark. This can save you a little time in checking other nearby airports, but to scan down to the JFK airport, we find the lowest fare is $238 from Delta’s site.
Qixo.com
Qixo searches 28 sites for fares, again with an easy to use interface. Because of the numerous sites searched, results take a little longer to appear than comparable sites. Qixo’s lowest fare was the Delta flight at $243, but Qixo’s charge is a non refundable $20.
Online Travel Agencies
Orbitz.com
A very easy to use web site, and returned the same Delta flight at $243. With Orbitz, the flight is booked with them rather than being redirected to another site. A “shortest flight” tab is available, which can be very useful particularly for the flights with layovers.
Expedia.com
Another very easy and complete web site to use, it returned the same Delta flight at $243. A fare comparison calendar is available to see what the recent price trends are for this route, and may help you plan your trip for a better travel deal if your dates are flexible.
Travelocity.com
Travelocity has a very easy to use interface, and shows nonstop flights in a grid. The grid also lists the price, but the total price is in smaller print in this grid. Not a big deal really, but the base price is not the price to compare to other sites. By creating an account, you can sign on to FareWatcher Plus, which will track the ticket prices of up to ten destinations. Travelocity returned the same Delta flight as the lowest cost, at $245.
Summary – all sites returned essentially the same lowest price flight at nearly the identical price. The interfaces are easy to use, and some provide different features than other that you may find more useful or interesting. Finding the few that work well for you will give you the sites to quickly crosscheck for pricing differences across a broad range of ticket prices out there on the web. You don’t have to go to all, or even that many of these sites to find the best travel deals available for airline tickets.
