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General Discussion => Essentially Flyertalk => Topic started by: Dugout DickStone on March 19, 2013, 09:46:31 PM

Title: Your travel search engine of choice
Post by: Dugout DickStone on March 19, 2013, 09:46:31 PM
Kayak?
Title: Re: Your travel search engine of choice
Post by: michigancat on March 19, 2013, 09:48:20 PM
Yes. Or southwest, depending on origin/destination.

often both.
Title: Re: Your travel search engine of choice
Post by: Dugout DickStone on March 19, 2013, 09:55:18 PM
Just making sure I'm not missing a new one, 99% of my travel is booked through our in house agent but I hate that she throws a % on all personal travel I have her book.
Title: Re: Your travel search engine of choice
Post by: michigancat on March 19, 2013, 10:00:46 PM
Our in house agents often can't get prices I can find on airline websites. It's pretty silly.
Title: Re: Your travel search engine of choice
Post by: PowercatPat on March 19, 2013, 11:44:00 PM
What is so great about Kayak?
Title: Re: Re: Your travel search engine of choice
Post by: michigancat on March 20, 2013, 12:05:44 AM
What is so great about Kayak?

quick, easy, has most airlines. more flexible and easier to filter than other travel sites. also easy to do more advanced things with price alerts and tracking.

 do you think there is a better option? I'd give it a shot.
Title: Your travel search engine of choice
Post by: steve dave on March 20, 2013, 05:50:36 AM
ITA travel software and their On The Fly app for elite power users. Milewise or Pointhub for award searches and price comparos. Hipmunk is also good.

http://matrix.itasoftware.com/search.htm

https://secured.milewise.com/

https://www.pointhub.com/ (will search SW)

http://www.hipmunk.com/
Title: Re: Your travel search engine of choice
Post by: ben ji on March 20, 2013, 08:25:58 AM
Usually fly southwest and check priceline just to make sure prices are decent. Will have to check out Kayak next time I travel.

Hotels.com is my standard choice for picking hotel rooms but will check others as well. Have used hotwire befire on a last minute trip and it worked great.
Title: Your travel search engine of choice
Post by: SkinnyBenny on March 20, 2013, 10:07:08 AM
Get the Hotel Tonight app if you like naming your own price on Priceline Hotels but would actually like to know before you buy where you're staying. It's decent.
Title: Re: Your travel search engine of choice
Post by: steve dave on March 20, 2013, 10:11:16 AM
never book a flight or hotel through whatever website you comparing prices at. find the flight/hotel you want and then book directly through the carrier as the price will be exactly the same. the chances of getting put in a better room and ease of dealing with itenerary changes are the advantages to doing this.
Title: Re: Your travel search engine of choice
Post by: hurtsogood on March 20, 2013, 10:13:30 AM
I make my wife do all of the booking!  Right guys?!?!

No.  No, actually I'm not married.  Don't even have a girlfriend.  Pretty lonely.

Title: Re: Your travel search engine of choice
Post by: steve dave on March 20, 2013, 10:13:51 AM
I make my wife do all of the booking!  Right guys?!?!

No.  No, actually I'm not married.  Don't even have a girlfriend.  Pretty lonely.

 :lol:
Title: Re: Your travel search engine of choice
Post by: hurtsogood on March 20, 2013, 10:34:07 AM
I make my wife do all of the booking!  Right guys?!?!

No.  No, actually I'm not married.  Don't even have a girlfriend.  Pretty lonely.

 :lol:

I know this is a silly website, but I'm being serious.  I'm lonely.

And the Master Dating Thread isn't helping.  It isn't even for dating.  It's for talking about dating and "fillies", which I can't really do because I'm not dating anyone.
Title: Re: Your travel search engine of choice
Post by: hurtsogood on March 20, 2013, 10:34:31 AM
Also, I use Kayak.
Title: Re: Your travel search engine of choice
Post by: chum1 on March 20, 2013, 10:40:25 AM
Million dollar idea:  travel dating website. 
Title: Re: Your travel search engine of choice
Post by: hurtsogood on March 20, 2013, 10:42:32 AM
Million dollar idea:  travel dating website.

I thought that was this website!
Title: Re: Your travel search engine of choice
Post by: chum1 on March 20, 2013, 10:45:32 AM
The website matches both personalities and itineraries.
Title: Re: Your travel search engine of choice
Post by: steve dave on March 20, 2013, 10:46:59 AM
The website matches both personalities and itineraries.

this is a great idea
Title: Re: Your travel search engine of choice
Post by: asava on March 20, 2013, 10:49:09 AM
i use either kayak.com or hipmunk.com sometimes use bing.com to check fluctuation in prices.
Title: Re: Your travel search engine of choice
Post by: steve dave on March 20, 2013, 10:55:22 AM
i use either kayak.com or hipmunk.com sometimes use bing.com to check fluctuation in prices.

yeah, bing is actually good. microsoft bought that flight price predictor website that I can't remember the name of a couple years back.
Title: Re: Your travel search engine of choice
Post by: michigancat on March 20, 2013, 11:08:30 AM
ITA travel software and their On The Fly app for elite power users. Milewise or Pointhub for award searches and price comparos. Hipmunk is also good.

http://matrix.itasoftware.com/search.htm

https://secured.milewise.com/

https://www.pointhub.com/ (will search SW)

http://www.hipmunk.com/
Milewise just pulled up zero results for an upcoming SFO-PHX trip. :lol:

And none of those are better than kayak, just slightly different. But the SW Miles one was nice.
Title: Re: Your travel search engine of choice
Post by: steve dave on March 20, 2013, 11:11:25 AM
ITA travel software and their On The Fly app for elite power users. Milewise or Pointhub for award searches and price comparos. Hipmunk is also good.

http://matrix.itasoftware.com/search.htm

https://secured.milewise.com/

https://www.pointhub.com/ (will search SW)

http://www.hipmunk.com/
Milewise just pulled up zero results for an upcoming SFO-PHX trip. :lol:

And none of those are better than kayak, just slightly different. But the SW Miles one was nice.

you don't know how to use them
Title: Re: Your travel search engine of choice
Post by: michigancat on March 20, 2013, 11:19:37 AM
ITA travel software and their On The Fly app for elite power users. Milewise or Pointhub for award searches and price comparos. Hipmunk is also good.

http://matrix.itasoftware.com/search.htm

https://secured.milewise.com/

https://www.pointhub.com/ (will search SW)

http://www.hipmunk.com/
Milewise just pulled up zero results for an upcoming SFO-PHX trip. :lol:

And none of those are better than kayak, just slightly different. But the SW Miles one was nice.

you don't know how to use them

OK
Title: Re: Your travel search engine of choice
Post by: mocat on March 20, 2013, 11:36:53 AM
never book a flight or hotel through whatever website you comparing prices at. find the flight/hotel you want and then book directly through the carrier as the price will be exactly the same. the chances of getting put in a better room and ease of dealing with itenerary changes are the advantages to doing this.

Yep, booking 101. If you have to cancel an expedia flight, for example, good luck.
Title: Re: Your travel search engine of choice
Post by: steve dave on March 20, 2013, 11:39:29 AM
ITA travel software and their On The Fly app for elite power users. Milewise or Pointhub for award searches and price comparos. Hipmunk is also good.

http://matrix.itasoftware.com/search.htm

https://secured.milewise.com/

https://www.pointhub.com/ (will search SW)

http://www.hipmunk.com/
Milewise just pulled up zero results for an upcoming SFO-PHX trip. :lol:

And none of those are better than kayak, just slightly different. But the SW Miles one was nice.

you don't know how to use them

OK

ITA will allow you to search by fare class which is important if you are wanting to get a status or mileage bump. it will also allow you to search by alliance with better results than any of the alliance carriers (other than ANA which usually shows all Star Alliance availability but you have to have an ANA mileage account). It requires some power user type stuff though. blog here explains some of it:

http://hackmytrip.com/2012/09/using-routing-language-with-ita-fare-matrix/

milewise stores your points and program logins similar to awardwallet. it will search flights based on the points you have in your accounts that it is tracking. Pointhub is similar but doesn't search the mileage you have in the tracked accounts. Showing SW availability is nice and it will show availability using different credit card programs (Ultimate Rewards, Membership Rewards, etc.) utilizing transfers or paying with points. Hipmunk has some of the built in stuff ITA has (not all) and is much easier to use. It also shows visually the layovers/lengths of each flight which is nice if you want to scroll through a bunch of flights fast.

but, if you want to fly from san fran to phoenix next tuesday in coach paying cash kayak is basically as good and easier for most.
Title: Re: Your travel search engine of choice
Post by: JustifiedAncientsofMuMu on March 20, 2013, 11:43:06 AM
ITA travel software and their On The Fly app for elite power users. Milewise or Pointhub for award searches and price comparos. Hipmunk is also good.

http://matrix.itasoftware.com/search.htm

https://secured.milewise.com/

https://www.pointhub.com/ (will search SW)

http://www.hipmunk.com/
Milewise just pulled up zero results for an upcoming SFO-PHX trip. :lol:

And none of those are better than kayak, just slightly different. But the SW Miles one was nice.

you don't know how to use them

OK

ITA will allow you to search by fare class which is important if you are wanting to get a status or mileage bump. it will also allow you to search by alliance with better results than any of the alliance carriers (other than ANA which usually shows all Star Alliance availability but you have to have an ANA mileage account). It requires some power user type stuff though. blog here explains some of it:

http://hackmytrip.com/2012/09/using-routing-language-with-ita-fare-matrix/

milewise stores your points and program logins similar to awardwallet. it will search flights based on the points you have in your accounts that it is tracking. Pointhub is similar but doesn't search the mileage you have in the tracked accounts. Showing SW availability is nice and it will show availability using different credit card programs (Ultimate Rewards, Membership Rewards, etc.) utilizing transfers or paying with points. Hipmunk has some of the built in stuff ITA has (not all) and is much easier to use. It also shows visually the layovers/lengths of each flight which is nice if you want to scroll through a bunch of flights fast.

but, if you want to fly from san fran to phoenix next tuesday in coach paying cash kayak is basically as good and easier for most.

this. came here to suggest ITA.
Title: Re: Your travel search engine of choice
Post by: michigancat on March 20, 2013, 11:51:20 AM
ITA travel software and their On The Fly app for elite power users. Milewise or Pointhub for award searches and price comparos. Hipmunk is also good.

http://matrix.itasoftware.com/search.htm

https://secured.milewise.com/

https://www.pointhub.com/ (will search SW)

http://www.hipmunk.com/
Milewise just pulled up zero results for an upcoming SFO-PHX trip. :lol:

And none of those are better than kayak, just slightly different. But the SW Miles one was nice.

you don't know how to use them

OK

ITA will allow you to search by fare class which is important if you are wanting to get a status or mileage bump. it will also allow you to search by alliance with better results than any of the alliance carriers (other than ANA which usually shows all Star Alliance availability but you have to have an ANA mileage account). It requires some power user type stuff though. blog here explains some of it:

http://hackmytrip.com/2012/09/using-routing-language-with-ita-fare-matrix/

You can do that on kayak w/o "special" codes
Title: Re: Your travel search engine of choice
Post by: steve dave on March 20, 2013, 11:52:17 AM
ITA travel software and their On The Fly app for elite power users. Milewise or Pointhub for award searches and price comparos. Hipmunk is also good.

http://matrix.itasoftware.com/search.htm

https://secured.milewise.com/

https://www.pointhub.com/ (will search SW)

http://www.hipmunk.com/
Milewise just pulled up zero results for an upcoming SFO-PHX trip. :lol:

And none of those are better than kayak, just slightly different. But the SW Miles one was nice.

you don't know how to use them

OK

ITA will allow you to search by fare class which is important if you are wanting to get a status or mileage bump. it will also allow you to search by alliance with better results than any of the alliance carriers (other than ANA which usually shows all Star Alliance availability but you have to have an ANA mileage account). It requires some power user type stuff though. blog here explains some of it:

http://hackmytrip.com/2012/09/using-routing-language-with-ita-fare-matrix/

You can do that on kayak w/o "special" codes

OK
Title: Re: Your travel search engine of choice
Post by: michigancat on March 20, 2013, 11:56:25 AM
that hacker guy also rated kayak above hipmunk
Title: Re: Your travel search engine of choice
Post by: Boom Roasted on March 20, 2013, 01:09:42 PM
I just did my first priceline hotel the other day.  Worked pretty good for two nights next weekend in Nashville.  Price was abour $45 less a night than what anything else I could find was.

http://www.betterbidding.com/

Their map program was helpful in just slightly raising my bid each time by selecting areas of the city that didnt have hotels in the range I was looking for.
Title: Re: Your travel search engine of choice
Post by: BarneyR on April 09, 2013, 10:50:24 AM
Kayak seems to do nothing more than post the rates on Priceline or Expedia.

See this 2013 rate comparison.  Kayak did not look good. This site did a head-to-head rate comparison with another "travel search engine" called Besttravelcoupon.com.  90 searches were compared.  Kayak with the lowest rate on only 5 of 90 searches.

http://travel-search-engines.com/hotel-search-comparison-kayak-besttravelcoupon/

They did the same with Priceline.  With Priceline?  They had the lowest rate on 0 of 90 searches.    Here is the priceline comparison: http://travel-search-engines.com/2013-reviews-priceline-besttravelcoupon/

Kayak and Priceline come up short. Even Stan Parrish had a better success record then these numbers!
Title: Re: Your travel search engine of choice
Post by: CNS on April 09, 2013, 11:25:58 AM
Used Hotwire for my New Orleans trip hotel this summer.  Hotel site wants $249/night and I booked it for $107/night.   :dance:
Title: Re: Your travel search engine of choice
Post by: MakeItRain on April 09, 2013, 12:08:25 PM
I loved Kayak until the All-American Muslim thing, I haven't been back since and won't go back until they get a new CEO.

For those of you that use these sites for hotels, I'd recommend trivago.com. I used it to book some fall dates for football games and I got better prices than priceline or hotwire. If you do use name your own price betterbidding.com is a great resource though.
Title: Re: Your travel search engine of choice
Post by: michigancat on April 09, 2013, 01:06:26 PM
Just noticed ITA matrix will search Southwest (as Airtran). Nice.
Title: Your travel search engine of choice
Post by: steve dave on April 09, 2013, 01:28:42 PM
Just noticed ITA matrix will search Southwest (as Airtran). Nice.

Yeah, I know it's nice dork
Title: Re: Your travel search engine of choice
Post by: michigancat on April 09, 2013, 02:23:21 PM
Just noticed ITA matrix will search Southwest (as Airtran). Nice.

Yeah, I know it's nice dork

yeah, kayak seemed to take some date flexibility away. You should have told me about the airtran thing! SW out of OAK is the best way to travel domestically from the Bay!
Title: Re: Your travel search engine of choice
Post by: steve dave on April 09, 2013, 02:29:11 PM
Just noticed ITA matrix will search Southwest (as Airtran). Nice.

Yeah, I know it's nice dork

yeah, kayak seemed to take some date flexibility away. You should have told me about the airtran thing! SW out of OAK is the best way to travel domestically from the Bay!

ok, I guess we're buds then
Title: Re: Your travel search engine of choice
Post by: michigancat on April 09, 2013, 02:35:23 PM
seriously, flying domestically out of SFO is kind of depressing. Shitty restaurants, and you have to watch all the Swiss Air and British Air and Cathay Pacific birds roll past your pud little plane.
Title: Re: Your travel search engine of choice
Post by: steve dave on April 09, 2013, 02:36:51 PM
seriously, flying domestically out of SFO is kind of depressing. Shitty restaurants, and you have to watch all the Swiss Air and British Air and Cathay Pacific birds roll past your pud little plane.

I like the train
Title: Re: Your travel search engine of choice
Post by: GoodForAnother on April 09, 2013, 02:39:39 PM
SFO is pretty shitty
Title: Re: Your travel search engine of choice
Post by: steve dave on April 09, 2013, 02:41:05 PM
SFO is pretty shitty

it's pretty easy to get in and out of though
Title: Re: Your travel search engine of choice
Post by: GoodForAnother on April 09, 2013, 02:43:21 PM
SFO is pretty shitty

it's pretty easy to get in and out of though

haha, what a slut SFO is
Title: Re: Your travel search engine of choice
Post by: SkinnyBenny on April 29, 2013, 11:26:27 PM
Used Hotwire for my New Orleans trip hotel this summer.  Hotel site wants $249/night and I booked it for $107/night.   :dance:

CNS Casey was it the Marriott that is basically right on Canal? I bet it was.
Title: Re: Your travel search engine of choice
Post by: michigancat on April 29, 2013, 11:43:42 PM
ita doesn't do the Airtran/SW search any more. Thanks Obama.
Title: Re: Your travel search engine of choice
Post by: SkinnyBenny on May 07, 2013, 12:41:29 PM
CNS CASEY!  :clockfoottappingguy:
Title: Re: Your travel search engine of choice
Post by: chum1 on February 14, 2014, 06:36:45 PM
Million dollar idea:  travel dating website.

http://miscellaneousmischief.com/wingman.html
Title: Re: Your travel search engine of choice
Post by: CNS on February 14, 2014, 07:37:49 PM
CNS CASEY!  :clockfoottappingguy:
just now seeing this, Ski'ben.  It was hyatt just off bourbon.  Like a block off canal and a block from Felix's (awesome oyster poboy).
Title: Re: Your travel search engine of choice
Post by: Trim on February 14, 2014, 10:10:06 PM
I loved Kayak until the All-American Muslim thing, I haven't been back since and won't go back until they get a new CEO.

For those of you that use these sites for hotels, I'd recommend trivago.com. I used it to book some fall dates for football games and I got better prices than priceline or hotwire. If you do use name your own price betterbidding.com is a great resource though.

Don't use whatever you used initially to find a FattyFest hotel last year that EMAWgeddon ended up going with.  :lol:
Title: Re: Your travel search engine of choice
Post by: Trim on February 14, 2014, 10:13:52 PM
Awardwallet and google chrome's open in new tab.