Less-Known Travel Sites May Be The Ticket This Holiday Season

Living thousands of miles away from my hometown, I’m always searching for flights to either book myself or to convince friends and family to visit. When I search, I usually go directly to the well-known sites such as Expedia or Travelocity. This holiday season, I decided to do some researcand find out the best ways to decipher, search and book travel through the less-known travel sites. I asked for advice from friends, associates and family hoping to get useful feedback. With a little investigating and a lot of advice from those who know, I’ve devised the list below. These sites are not well known, but provide great flight reservation options. Hopefully this information will help you book the most convenient and cost effective flight this holiday season.

www.cheapair.com
I’ve heard this site is a hidden treasure, and after visiting the site I have to agree. The site is very user-friendly and provided some of the best fares I’ve seen. While I’ve never booked through the site myself, I have received excellent reviews. The site will mix and match airlines for departure and return. Many travel booking sites will not mix and match. The service fee is about ten dollars for a roundtrip flight from Orlando to Pittsburgh.

www.priceline.com

Feedback on this site was positive, especially when it came to foreign travel. You can search flights similar to the way you do on other sites, or name your own price. Yes, name your own price! However, if you choose to name your own price they’ll need passenger names, a credit card to secure the reservation and airport choices before the search begins. You’ll get your answer in 60 seconds or less. When you pick your price you don’t have the opportunity to choose your times or the opportunity to decline the reservation once you search. I’ll stick with the search and book, but those of you more adventurous than I might like this option.

www.lastminutetravel.com
Last Minute Travel boasts no booking fees on their homepage. This is a plus! The flight prices seemed a little higher than what I found for the same dates on Cheapair and a little less than what I found on Priceline. This site works well when you are, what else, traveling last minute. Soon Last Minute Travel will be launching a new site, www.lastminutecruises.com.

www.site59.com (Click here for a Promo Code to save $59)
In addition to Last Minute Travel, site59 is an excellent resource for last minute getaways. Flights can be purchased no sooner than two weeks in advance and up to three hours before you depart. When you search the results automatically show prices to fly into nearby airports as well as your destination airport. Although the site says it only offers flights two weeks in advance, I’ve found that they sometimes offer holiday weekends as early as 17 days before departure.

www.kayak.com
Kayak searches over 120 travel booking sources at once and alleviates the issue of skipping from site to site trying to find the best price. Once you find your price Kayak links you to the actual travel-booking site to make your reservation. If your travel dates are flexible, you can boost your chance of finding a better deal. Kayak isn’t known for the best when booking international flights, and it doesn’t show flights on Southwest or ATA.

I rate the sites above the best, but I have to rate a few sites unsatisfactory. Those sites are www.bestfares.com and www.quixo.com. Neither was user-friendly as far as booking online. The sites were difficult to navigate and there was either not enough or too much information.

Watch Those Flights!

Before you book, you can keep an eye on your flights of choice by logging onto either www.farecast.com or www.airfarewatchdog.com.

Farecast predicts whether fares on most domestic flights will go up or down. Enter your preferred itinerary and the site will tell you if you should book now or wait. To make its forecasts, the site analyzes past fare trends in airline databases and other factors. It updates its fares shortly after 10 a.m., 12:30 p.m. and 3 p.m. ET.

From time to time, airlines will offer unbelievably low fares on selected flights or itineraries. Airfare Watchdog posts these bargains faster than other web sites. To take advantage of these time-sensitive offers, you must book them right away. This site specializes in deals for flights departing from hundreds of cities.

On a final note, always be sure and find out if your departure or arrival airport is a hub to a specific airline. For example, Baltimore Washington International Airport is the hub for Southwest. Most of the time flights out of and to Baltimore are less expensive on the Southwest website. (www.southwest.com)

Stay tuned for more information to save big on holiday travel. In the meantime check out these sites for holiday travel predictions www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2006/11/holiday_travel.html or www.allheadlinenews.com/articles/7005462184