Travel would be much more enjoyable if it weren’t for having to book a flight and put up with the actual flying part of the trip.
I don’t plan a whole lot out when I travel. Other than making a reservation for a place to stay for the first few days and the airline ticket, I tend to kind of play it day to day.
Booking a flight is like buying a car, you know what is coming and you just want it to be over. You want the new car but hate going to the dealership and dealing with the Salesman. You’re making offers and he is running back and forth to the Sales Manager presenting your offer.
When you book an airline flight you punch in the criteria you want and it starts running around to find the price. If you are like me that first price is not good enough. Just like sending the car salesman back to his manager with another offer you start looking at other booking sites thinking, “Maybe I can get a better price”. All the time hoping that in the end you got the very best deal.
Of course you know all the tricks, before booking the flight check the airline website to see if it might be cheaper there. And of course cheaper doesn’t always mean better. I mean some tickets sold on the booking sites are not authorized for upgrade, some are non-refundable, some have penalties for changing the reservation, some have baggage fees, etc. But for those of you, and I include myself in this group, that look for the best price and route, then here is the Ultimate list of Airfare Booking Sites.
Some of these you already know, some you may have seen before and forgotten about, others may be new to you.
And before we go any further I just want to say I in no way endorse any of these sites, do your own research and find one that suits you.
Expedia
Expedia was initially launched in 1996 by Microsoft and later spun off. Expedia also has over 20 localized sites in other countries and own Hotwire.
HOTWIRE
Since 2000 this site has been a favorite of those seeking low cost fares. When airline seats go unsold, travel companies use Hotwire to sell them. Hotwire is an operating company of Expedia.
PRICELINE
Priceline has been around since 1998 and offers traditional booking and Name Your Own Price, where you can bid on flights.
ORBITZ
Originally started by a partnership of several airlines, Orbitz has been in operation since 2001. Orbitz also owns Cheaptickets.
TRAVELOCITY
Created in 1996 as subsidiary of Sabre Holdings and American Airlines, Travelocity also owns Lastminute.com
CHEAPOAIR
Starting operations in 2005, cheapOair bills itself as a full-fledged online travel agency.
KAYAK
Kayak is a travel search engine owned by the Priceline Group, that searches multiple sites at once. One of the cool features is Kayak explore a map based search that allows you to put in an airport and a general date you want to travel. The map then shows you locations on the map and prices. So if you’re not sure where you want to go or you want to do some exploring, it will give you suggestions.
VAYAMA
Vayama is an online travel agency specialized in selling international travel.
CTRIP
CTRIP was founded in 1999 and based in Shanghai China. While you can search flights anywhere CTRIP specializes in Asian destinations with the majority of its business concentrated on Chinese destinations.
CHEAPAIR
Cheapair, not to be confused with cheapOair.com, was founded in 1989 by two college buddies. In 2013, CheapAir became the first travel agency world-wide to accept bitcoin as an alternate form of payment for flights.
CHEAPTICKETS
Founded in 1986 in Hawaii as an airline ticket consolidator now part of Orbitz.
FLIGHTFOX
Founded in 2012 Flightfox provides a consultation service. For a fee you tell them your destination, travel dates and flexibility and their experts begin looking for the best fares and routes that suit your needs. A lot of people save money so they must be doing something right.
MOMONDO
Momondo was launched in 2006 and is a metasearch engine that compares prices and then refers you to the site selling the ticket. At the top of the search is also a graph that shows departure and return dates for one week before and after the date you put in so you can compare different dates.
SKYSCANNER
Skyscanner is also a metasearch system that allows you to put in departure city and instead of a specific arrival city just insert “everywhere”. You will get a list of destinations and prices. If you need inspiration on travel destinations to you can always buy a guidebook to give you some ideas.Like Momondo there is a chart with different dates or you can choose a calendar view.
MOBISSIMO
Mobissimo was founded in 2005 and its search function aggregates results from over 150 travel suppliers.
Fly.com
Fly.com is owned by Travelzoo and according to its website, the site searches hundreds of airline and major travel sites for real-time fares, and even include taxes in the fare prices.
They search major domestic and international airlines, including low cost airlines, and even online travel agencies and airfare consolidators. They provide the results and then link directly to the supplier’s Web site.
Webjet
Webjet has been around since 1998 and is a travel metasearch engine.
AIRGORILLA
Airgorilla bills itself as a discount travel booking site by offering tickets from consolidators.
ADIOSO
Is a travel search engine with a twist. You put in departure city and then search by destination, activity such as “best Night Markets in the World” or “Lonely Planet’s best of 2014”. You can also search by City, Continent, Country or State. For dates you can select a range of dates, the entire month or anytime.
ONETRAVEL
Onetravel is owned by Fareportal, which also owns cheapOair and Farebuzz. They say they specialize in discount airfares along with Business/First Class travel, Gay and Lesbian Travel, Student Travel, Senior Travel, ethnic destinations (which is I guess anywhere but where you live) and vacation packages. So I guess they specialize in everything that has to do with travel.
ROUTEHAPPY
Routehappy not only delivers your flight results but adds the “Happy” factor which takes a look at aircraft, seat, amenities, trip duration, and ratings then bundles that together to give you a happiness rating.
WHICHBUDGET
Bills itself as a Google type search engine but for flights. You can search for flights from your local airport to anywhere, anytime they just point you in the direction of the travel agent or airline after you do your search.
MAKEMYTRIP
MakeMyTrip, India’s leading online travel company was founded in the year 2000, originally specializing in travel to and from India. Today you can search for flights worldwide.
BING TRAVEL
At one point Bing had a prediction tool advising the best time to buy your ticket. Today Bing travel uses Kayak search and sends you to Orbitz to book the flight, so not sure why they even still have it.
GOOGLE FLIGHTS
Google Flights is an online flight booking service which facilitates the purchase of airline tickets through third party suppliers using ITA Flight Software that they purchased in 2011.
You can find other booking sites, some are affiliate sites some are regional and others just too small to list here. I have listed 26, if you can’t find an airfare booking site you like out of these then I can’t help you.
But, now that you know where the list is you can bookmark it and return whenever you need to.
Ryan Biddulph says
Nice list Bob! Kelli – my better half – handles this end of things. I reckon she stops by at least a few of these sites to find the juicy deals that you nails down, and I gotta say, I really do mean juicy deals! I’ve no clue how she finds these round the world trips for the prices that she does but I know that timing as well as looking in the right spots plays an issue in this flight finding game.
We’re traveling EVA Air to Singapore in a few days and then Air Asia to Bali. Looking forward to the trip of course…..after we dig our way out of this blizzard in NJ 😉
Thanks Bob, and keep up the great work!
Ryan
thetravellingfool says
Hi Ryan,
Can’t blame you for wanting to escape the cold and SE Asia is the best place to do it. Got room in your carry on for me?
Sally Munt says
Great list. Definitely some on there i need to try! I spend ours on my laptop looking through sites like these!
Charles McCool says
I still use ITA Matrix (pre Google Flights) because I like the parameters and results.
Mary @ Green Global Travel says
Skiplagged.com has also been getting a lot of press lately for its unique methods for finding cheap flights. Great, thorough list 🙂
thetravellingfool says
Thanks for adding to the list.
Dani Blanchette says
I like BootsnAll’s Indie Travel Finder (indie.bootsnall.com) It’s really cool to be able to create multiple stop flights and get prices right away (without having to deal with alliances and phone calls). I find it makes figuring out the logisitics of a trip WAY easier.
Helen says
Very good and useful list, thank you.
I selected a few addresses which are good for me, especially when I travel in Asia.
Thanks again.
thetravellingfool says
Hi Helen, Glad you found it useful
Sophia says
Great list! Quite a few I hadn’t heard of before.
Do you know of any sites that srtill provide the best times to book (like Bing used to)?
Thanks!
thetravellingfool says
Unfortunately, no.
Arina says
Hi Bob! What a great list! I’m currently using a few of these websites like Skyscanner, Momondo, Kayak, Expedia and it’s cool to know there are so much more options to have a look at.
As a frequent traveller and on preparation for my rtw trip, one of my favourite things to do in spare time is looking for cheap, interesting deals.
Thank you for this list!
thetravellingfool says
Glad you found it useful. Have fun on your trip