Matt Gross at the NYT writes a great column called "The Frugal Traveler," and this week he covers many travel websites centered on finding the best airfare, plus a few other subjects. Plenty of great links in the original article.
Travel Web Sites: A Click-On Showdown>
Matt Gross for The New York Times
Last month, I outlined my methods for planning frugal trips, from setting up Google News alerts to reading local novels set in my destination. Many readers wrote in with tips of their own, including Web sites I’d never heard of or had yet to try. So I put them to the test.
Up first, the battle of the booking sites. Reader Haskel suggested Mobissimo.com, whose fares, he wrote, “are very often cheaper than those on Kayak. It is a must-stop Web site for me.” Whitney, meanwhile, suggested Vayama.com, writing, “it has negotiated deals for international flights, plus the ease of use of the site is wonderful.” Mark considers SideStep.com “awesome,” while Michael Madison calls Dohop.com “a must-go site.”
The search engine Bing.com. I’d heard of these before, but I figured I’d pit them against one another — along with Bing.com, the recently relaunched, somewhat travel-focused search engine from Microsoft. The challenge: My next big trip, from New York City to Vancouver in early August. Whose algorithms would reign supreme?
Let’s start with the losers. In this admittedly unscientific survey, Mobissimo came in dead last, putting me on a nonstop Cathay Pacific flight for $503.17. That’s a whopping 17 cents more expensive than the same flight at Vayama. Sidestep, Kayak.com (my usual go-to booking site) and ITAsoftware.com (a wonky but flexible site) all found the same nonstop on Cathay Pacific, but for a little bit less, $491.
Frugal Traveler at NYT
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