Best website for cheap air fares?

Hi everyone

 

The title says it all really. What websites do you think best for cheap fares?

 

TIA

Samantha

Book directly with the airline around 1am on Tue or Wed.

Book directly with the airline around 1am on Tue or Wed.

 

LOL, good one...

 

The answer is there's no such thing as a cheap website otherwise none of the others would exist. Booking with the airline directly is always your best bet. This booking in the middle of the night on certain days of the week stuff is complete urban legend cooked up by people who are trying to believe there's some kind of black magic behind booking fares.

Thanks for the replies. I'm actually using Kayak atm to at least find the best flights time/layover wise.

LOL, good one...

 

The answer is there's no such thing as a cheap website otherwise none of the others would exist. Booking with the airline directly is always your best bet. This booking in the middle of the night on certain days of the week stuff is complete urban legend cooked up by people who are trying to believe there's some kind of black magic behind booking fares.

 

Not quite true. There are people, like me, who prefer to book directly with the airline. I know what I am getting. However, many people would rather give up some things (such as having a ticket that can be endorsed to another airline, or re-routed through another city) in exchange for the absolute cheapest fare they can get. There are markets for both. I, personally, have never done the latter, so I cannot recommend any sites. I always book directly with the airline or, in some very rare cases, trusted agents (not discount or consolidator agents).

Edited March 17, 2014 by Zach1213

I book directly with the airline, unless there's some sort of mistake fare, then I'm willing to take the risk to book with almost anyone :).

I usually run my flights on kayak first, then go to the airline (from kayak) that provides the lowest fare (although I will pay slightly more to go with Delta).

No matter where you end up booking, be sure you know where your credit card transaction will be processed. Even if you're on the USA portion of a third party or airline website, their bank may process your card in another country and may result in steep foreign transaction fees on your credit card. A travel ombudsman occasionally gets cases where people book an expensive trip and are shocked at hundreds of dollars in international fees. There's nothing he can do since it's clearly part of the credit card agreement.

 

Best way to avoid the issue is use a card with no fee for international transactions. Capital One is the most popular "go to" for this; other cards are starting to drop the fee since they're losing business.

 

I know my comments are US-centric but I don't know if it's an issue with CC's in other home countries.

I search for published fares on http://matrix.itasoftware.com which (when you learn how to use it) is probably the most powerful published fare search tool currently available to the public.

 

I think that published fares are generally best bought from the operating airline, unless the itinerary involves some complex mixture of airlines that a single airline's website won't handle.

 

To include low-fare airlines, http://www.skyscanner.net is a useful additional tool.

I had gotten prices on one of those big search sites when I wasn't ready to book. 2 days later the price was gone, about $250.00 more. I kept checking and the higher prices stayed. One of those pop-up sites did have the older, lower price and I booked.

So the answer is when you find it, grab it.

One of those pop-up sites did have the older, lower price and I booked.

Depending on what the "pop-up site" was, you may not have been buying the same thing as you would have got if you had paid the original price at the time that you originally saw it. So some caution is needed about that. A ticket bought from one site for $500 is not necessarily the same as a ticket bought from another site for $500. If the first site's price has gone up to $600 but the second site's price stays at $500, I'd be wanting to ask questions about what the second site is actually selling. It's likely that it will all work out in the end, but it's always worth knowing about what you're actually getting.