If you travel as much I do, you find yourself spending lots of time on online travel agencies (OTAs), comparing prices, trying to get the best deals possible. The uncomfortable truth is that no one flight search engine can guarantee the best price 100 percent of the time, but using a mix of the right resources can help ensure you’re not overpaying.
There are so many factors: dates, times, price, fare class, airline, and more. Even when you know exactly when and where you want to fly, where should you look for the absolute best price? I’ve taken time to comb through many popular OTAs to compare prices.
Momondo
One of the things I love about this site is the super visual way they show you the price trends for your flight. At first glance, you can tell if you could save some money by shifting around your travel dates a bit. They also offer a price tracker and lots of filtering options on the left-hand side of the screen.
www.momondo.com
Expedia
Expedia is nearly identical to Travelocity, but fares did vary between the two sites on some of my searches. As with Travelocity (and to be fair, a number of other OTAs), Expedia will try to up-sell you on adding a hotel to your itinerary. This can save you money, but be sure to compare prices before you book.
www.expedia.com
Kayak
Kayak compares prices from many different websites all in a single spot so you can easily see where the cheapest options are. Most of the time, you’ll end up clicking through to a different site to complete your booking.
www.kayak.com
Skyscanner
Skyscanner is a popular metasearch site that works with hundreds of other travel providers to find the best fares. You can specify nonstop-flights-only right from the homepage, and there’s also a handy “everywhere” option if you don’t have a particular destination in mind and want to see what’s available. Search results show the “best” option (based on a combination of price and speed) as well as the fastest and cheapest, and you can filter by airline, alliance, number of stops, and flight times. When you select a result, you’ll see a variety of places to book that particular flight. Skyscanner casts a wide net, so you’ll often see very cheap fares from booking sites you’ve never heard of; to help you figure out how trustworthy they are, Skyscanner shows user star ratings for each.
www.skyscanner.net
Hotwire
Hotwire offers a great deal when booking a hotel along with your flight. Many times during the booking process, you’ll see pop-ups or prompts advertising great savings when booking a hotel at the same time. I tested it, and every time I priced out a Hotwire vacation package deal against purchasing a flight and hotel separately, the package deal won.
www.hotwire.com
