Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Surfing for Airfares
By far the best way to search for airfares to Italy is to use the
“aggrega-
tor” websites,
so named because they don't sell travel, but simply aggre-
gate information on what the other sites are offering (they then get a
commission from these sites if you make a booking via their search).
Because they usually take you directly to the airlines' websites, you bypass
the fees charged by such online travel agencies as
Expedia.com, Travelo
city.com,
and
Orbitz.com
(also the aggregators don't allow companies to
pay for placement, yielding a more logical search). The top three within
the United States are
Kayak.com, ITASoftware.com,
and
Sidestep.com.
If
you can be flexible on your dates of travel, I highly recommend
Cheap
Flights.com,
which works with small discounters, allowing them to post
their lowest fares online with no dates attached (you then contact the site
in question directly to book travel). Each of the smaller sites searched by
CheapFlights.com has different business deals with the airlines and may
offer different fares on the same flights, so it's wise to shop around.
Great
last-minute deals
are available through free weekly e-mail serv-
ices provided directly by the airlines. Most of these are announced on
Tuesday or Wednesday and must be purchased online. Sign up for weekly
e-mail alerts at airline websites or check mega-sites that compile compre-
hensive lists of last-minute specials, such as
Smartertravel.com.
For last-
minute trips,
site59.com
and
lastminutetravel.com
in the U.S. and
lastminute.com
in Europe often have better air-and-hotel package deals
than the major-label sites.
If you're willing to give up some control over your flight details, use
what is called an “
opaque” fare service
like
Priceline.com
(
www.priceline.
co.uk
for Europeans) or its smaller competitor
Hotwire.com.
Both offer
rock-bottom prices in exchange for travel on a “mystery airline” at a mys-
terious time of day, often with a mysterious change of planes en route. To
be fair, these sites usually use only major carriers and allow you to limit
your flight times to between 6am and 11pm. Hotwire tells you flight prices
before you buy; Priceline usually has better deals than Hotwire, but you
have to play their “name our price” game. If you're new at this, the help-
ful folks at
BiddingForTravel.com
do a good job of demystifying Priceline's
prices and strategies.
Note:
In 2004 Priceline added non-opaque service
to its roster. You now have the option to pick exact flights, times, and air-
lines from a list of offers—or opt to bid on opaque fares as before.
