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Savvy travelers know Travelocity and Expedia don't always include the cheapest fares in their searches. But who has time to comb through every airline website looking for better deals? Four new airfare mash-up sites do the hard work for you.
Unlike the first generation of travel sites, these startups don't actually sell you the ticket once you've found your fare. Instead, they search airline and travel-booking sites to find the best deal, then hand you off to the site offering that fare when you're ready to buy.
We found that all four of the search engines we tested cover roughly the same travel websites, but the deals they found varied by as much as $100. On fare prices, Yahoo FareChase was the clear winner, delivering the lowest prices on five out of eight test routes. FareCast comes in a close second for usability, although it delivered the lowest fare in only one test case. Here's how the sites stack up.
FareChase is user-friendly, showing airfares in one clear column down the middle of the page. If it finds a cheaper flight on slightly different travel dates than the ones you've specified, you will see a bright yellow pop-up. Adjusting your travel plans is easy with a large Modify Search button. And it found the best fares in five out of eight test searches.Yet there's no chart that shows you rates over a range of travel dates, no predictions about airfare trends, and -- worst of all -- you have to constantly revisit the site and see the ads to check for new rates, because there's no e-mail notification of reduced rates.
Farecast offers the most usable options for researching low fares based on recent trends in fare prices and predicted changes in fares. Links at the top of the screen show how you can get lower fares if you fly on different dates, and there's a simple graph that shows you airfare trends for your specific travel plan. If you're not quite ready to travel, Farecast's Fare Alerts are especially helpful, letting you know by e-mail about rate reductions. The site also offers "Fare Guard" protection -- a kind of warranty against fare increases if you wait for a cheaper flight -- but it costs $10. It might be worth it, since Farecast only found the lowest fare in one out of eight test searches.
SideStep lacks the helpful charts and prediction capabilities of FareCast, and the interface is not as usable as Yahoo FareChase, but it does offer one perk: You can easily adjust your travel plans -- eliminating a stopover, changing the dates -- and see how it impacts your cost immediately. A FareTracker lets you store a flight plan and monitor the rates, and it has an e-mail notifier to alert you to low fares. SideStep found the lowest fares on just two international flights out of the eight routes we tested, and it also lost points for usability.
Like SideStep, Kayak provides several helpful toggles on the left side of the screen for adjusting your flight plan. They are easy to use, with sliders for layover length and flight times so you can easily see how your changes will affect the rate. Small perks abound: You can enter your home airport and Kayak will always fill in the departure field with that city. However, it found the lowest fare on just two out of eight test flights, and Kayak's interface tends to be a bit more cluttered and confusing than that of the other sites.
