Travel websites?

[davemchine]

I've booked trips through Expedia and other websites but I'm curious about which site is "best." Primarily I'm interested in alerts for low fares to my common destinations and I'm interested in seeing price trends. Recommendations?

[Black]

I have never been able to get any of those alerts to work properly. You do what you can to make sure you're signing up for the most specific possible alert, and then you end up getting daily mailings for unrelated things anyways.

Standard advice is look for a low fare on one of the aggregator sites (Priceline, Orbitz, Kayak, etc.), then go directly to that airline's site.
Sometimes the info is displayed in such a way that you can see what day of the week the loweest fares happen (e.g. Frontier does this) and you can adjust accordingly.

[testcase]

I doubt there is any one best travel website. In years past, I've used Expedia, Travelocity, Kayak and probably others. Deals change too often which can make travel planning an ordeal. When you find a deal that "works" for you, you should probably just book it and then get on with your life. If you're that anal with it, you might be better off paying a travel agent to pound the keyboard for you.

[Black]

I should note that by buying directly from the airline, I got a higher level of service than I would have for the same price by buying through a reseller (no charge for carry-on, ability to choose my seats.)

[OWC Jamie]

I've gotten the cheapest fare through ebookers to London last time but the flight insurance was only good for UK citizens.
I've used primarily kayak lately mostly because some (Delta ? ) air miles were invalid booking through travelocity. I've seen fares that were valid for just an hour or two though on a Tuesday morning, so you gotta be quick.
I've found cheap fares three weeks out and 7 months out.
I still like to check repeatedly starting early morning Tuesday.

That little buy now/wait thing up in the left corner of kayak is a worthless gimmick.

[Ca Bob]

Well, the best way is to have a relative who is a pilot and have access to a free pass. Absent that, I have used Kayak, Priceline, and Travelocity in recent years. I don't think it makes a lot of difference, because they all seem to access the same data base of fares. All that having been said, I found that using a site like Kayak allows you to reduce the overall roundtrip fare because it will calculate the best fare based on whatever airlines are going in either direction. I flew to Europe a couple of years ago on American, and came back on Iberia, where the Iberia flight was code shared with American. It worked fine.

[Ken Sp.]

Retired Travel Agency owner and Talk Radio "Frugal Guy" has some good resources.
http://www.clarkhoward.com/topics/bookin...ing-guide/

[DavidS]

Based on lots of advice online (including ClarkHoward.com, I used Kayak to follow travel trends and prices with daily alerts for our current trip to Costa Rica (greetings from near the Arenal Volcano!). After following fares for three months, I went ahead and bought our tickets.

2 weeks later, they dropped, went back up, then dropped again for a few weeks. They didn't start going back up until about 2 weeks before our trip. They went down by as much as $150 per ticket. Of course, Delta charges $200 to change any ticket and they don't match their own prices (unless you are Gold Medallion or higher).

Moral of the story - follow the prices all you want, but the airlines are often random and drop/raise prices based on demand. These things are constant gambles, so buy tickets when you are comfortable with the price.

[Frank]

Ken Sp. wrote:
Retired Travel Agency owner and Talk Radio "Frugal Guy" has some good resources.
http://www.clarkhoward.com/topics/bookin...ing-guide/

Thanks for this tip. Following the link I found autoslash.com for saving on car rentals. Saved me $90 (so far) on a two week rental.miley-signs001:

[SteveO]

I use Costco for car rentals. I have yet to find a cheaper car rental agency, and I've looked, it's such pita anyway. But I do love a bargain. Last time I flew last-minute, I bought my ticket via hotwire (name your own price). Saved $100 over the ticket my wife had bought 2 months in advance, and had better flight times. Go figure.