10 BEST AIR-FAIR WEBSITES
BEST WEBSITES TO BOOK YOUR FLIGHTS
We all book our flights online these days so it would be good to know which sites offer the best value right?
There are seemingly endless options when it comes to choosing the best flight.
In addition to the option of booking directly with your airline, there are dozens of flight booking websites, also known as online travel agencies (OTAs), to choose from. 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.
TRAVELOCITY
It should be noted that Expedia owns Travelocity, so this flight booking site basically gives you Expedia price results with a different colour scheme and organisational preferences. Travelocity’s homepage is streamlined, but doesn’t offer a flexible-dates search. On the results page, bag fees are revealed by clicking a drop-down for each fare, which makes it a little difficult to compare fees (you will likely have to scroll a bit). Travelocity rates each flight itinerary with a score on a scale of 10, which assess the duration, type of aircraft, and “quality of amenities” available onboard from ‘Very Good’ to ‘Satisfactory’ to ‘Fair.’ Travelocity does not charge a booking fee for round-trip flights on the same airline.
Best Feature: The out-of-10 flight rating assigns each itinerary a clear score, so you’re a lot less likely to mistakenly book a long layover or miss out on a better itinerary with Travelocity.
EXPEDIA
As previously mentioned, Expedia is nearly identical to Travelocity. Same interface, same flights, same prices, but in a different colour scheme. 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. Expedia does not charge a booking fee on round-trip flights on the same airline. When you select your fare from the list of options, there’s an interstitial step that displays what is and isn’t covered in the fare, including seat selection, cancellations, changes, and baggage rules.
Best Feature: Like its subsidiary Travelocity, Expedia basically double-checks that you understand what sort of fare you’re choosing before you click “select” again. It’s a helpful bit of transparency in today’s cluttered airfare landscape.
CHEAPOAIR
Much like Travelocity and Expedia, flight search sites CheapOair and One Travel are versions of the same product, owned by Fareportal Inc. CheapOair charges the same booking fee as One Travel: up to $35 per ticket. The price results are identical, although the layout of the results differs somewhat, as CheapOair opts for a chart rather than a calendar.
Best Feature: Similarly to Bookit.com, CheapOair prioritises nonstop prices over itineraries with stops, organised in an easy-to-read charts that’s organised by airline.
TRIP ADVISORS FLIGHTS
(SmarterTravel’s parent company) is known for its hotel reviews, and now travellers can apply their ratings to airlines, plus search for airfare on TripAdvisor Flights. On testing this flight booking site it’s clear that TripAdvisor doesn’t always serve up the cheapest fares, but sometimes it did. It always, however, gives you the option to surface Expedia, Travelocity, and other flight booking sites’ results, so you can compare right away with one click. TripAdvisor Flights also has some helpful search options up-front, like a check box for prioritising nonstop flights.
Best Feature: TripAdvisor’s flight search tool is unique from others in that it offers review-based FlyScores of airlines alongside their fares, so you’re less likely to book with an obscure, low-rated airline without realising.
BOOKIT.COM
Results are listed in a handy chart (rather than as the typical scrolling list) showing the lowest prices grouped for nonstop, one-stop, and two-stop flights for a few primary carriers including the ‘best price,’ clearly marked. Otherwise, its results page is similar to most, with lots of drop-down menus and checkboxes for narrowing your results if you have specific needs. However, it charges a booking fee. Annoyingly, it was difficult to find information on exactly how much this flight booking site charges—terms and conditions are vague on the topic.
Best Feature: The table-style results chart on Bookit.com makes it easy to compare prices in one place rather than scrolling and mentally comparing itineraries.
ONE TRAVEL
One Travel borrows its interface from Google Flights’ calendar search feature. When you enter your departure and destination airports, the dates field brings up a calendar with prices pre-populated. This is a helpful feature for immediately honing in on the travel dates with the best prices if and when your dates are flexible.
One major drawback: One Travel charges a steep service fee of up to $35 per ticket. One Travel also offers different (and in my opinion, sometimes worse) itineraries than most at the top of its results page. Highlighted itineraries, upon closer inspection, included an extra stop. It’s important to make sure you’re comparing the same exact flights by looking at the flight number, or at least by keeping track the different options.
Best Feature: The calendar organisation that’s hard to find on other flight booking sites is the most ideal format if you’re flexible on travel dates.
TRAVELZOO
Travelzoo is quite different from the other sites listed here. Instead of booking specific itineraries, you can search broad timelines (this week, next month, this summer, etc.) for deals in your desired destination by either month or season. This makes Travelzoo a good fit for people with a budget and time frame, but no firm idea of when or even where they want to go. The downside is that if you do have specific plans in mind—for example, you need a flight to Omaha in March—Travelzoo is not likely to be helpful.
Best Feature: Travelzoo’s flexibility requirement can afford some great deals you won’t find elsewhere, like cheap business class flights and multi-city itineraries that will make a dream trip a lot more affordable than you’d think.
GOOGLE FLIGHTS
A powerful, simple metasearch site that comes free of ads and distractions. After you enter your departure and arrival airports, the calendar pre-populates with prices so you can target dates with lower fares (One Travel uses this tool). Once you have your results, you can track fares on your selected dates and receive updates by email.
Best Feature: The “search by map” function, which allows you to enter dates or a flexible period and see fares displayed all at once on a map. This can be helpful if you want to go to Europe in April, for example, but don’t have a particular destination in mind.
KAYAK
Often imitated and frequently duplicated, KAYAK was a game-changer when it launched back in the mid-2000s. And it’s still one of the most powerful metasearch tools available. You can also set up fares alerts to track prices over time. The interface is noisier than Google Flights thanks to a preponderance of ads, but still easy to use.
Best Feature: Its Hacker Fares claim to piece together separate one-way tickets, potentially saving you money compared to similar itineraries, and its wide range of filters, sorting options, and predictive technologies put a lot of tools at travellers’ disposal.
MOMONDO
One quirk of Momondo is a lack of transparency around the results. The top result in my test search was listed as from a “Major Airline,” which I was only able to identify by matching it to results from other searches. One plus: Momondo surfaces results from Southwest … but without prices. The results showed flight times and details from the carrier, but the fare was listed as “Unknown Price.” Only by clicking through to Southwest could I see the fare. Still, it’s nice to have a reminder that Southwest is an unlisted option. Another plus: Momondo searches for fares from a ton of smaller OTAs, which could lead to a deal that other metasearch tools miss.
Best Feature: The mention of Southwest is unique to Momondo. It gets kudos for flagging a reminder to check a competitor for something it doesn’t offer.
Editorial thanks to SmarterTravel