Booking a cheap flight – it’s an art
After getting a few good gigs over the last few months I have decided to take a bit of a vacation in July to visit my family in Florida. Picking dates to take off was hard enough, but booking the flight has proven to be a challenge as well. It used to be a matter logging into expedia and entering the date, but now with Aggregators (ex: Kayak.com) you can spend a lot of time getting the “best deal”.
Overall the experience on these sites work out to be beneficial but sometimes it pays to book from the chosen airlines site. In the case of Jet Blue you get double reward points for booking through jetblue.com which in turn results in a free flight down the road.
What websites do you use to book and does anyone still visit a booking agent? Oh and for your booking convenience here is a few good links.
Aggregators:
Kayak | Farechase
Booking Sites (old school):
Expedia | Orbitz | Hotwire | Cheaptickets | Priceline
Airline Sites:
American Airlines | Continental | Delta | Jet Blue | Northwest | U.S. Airways
Eileen C.
June 4, 2007 9:39 amM:
Nice to find your blog!
Aside from the usual Expedia/Orbitz/Travelocity fare, I sometimes use a site called QIXO that digs through data from tons of different travel sites. For cheap fares, I always check out JetBlue, Southwest, Airtran, etc. for possible bargains. Traveling out of T.F. Green Airport in Rhode Island can also save you money if you can swing the commute.
The advantage to using a booking agent is that you have the opportunity to keep flexible with your flights until the last minute, as they can frequently give you credit toward another flight if you have to rebook midstream. I only use booking agents for work flights, though — not personal.
Happy bargain hunting!
–Eileen C., Mary’s sister
dan
June 12, 2007 3:14 pmHello,
I would suggest to use a site called Trabber that retrieve the airfares online from travel agencies and airline website. Here is the address – https://www.trabber.com