Your travel search engine of choice

[JustifiedAncientsofMuMu]

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.

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.

[michigancat]

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.

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

[steve dave]

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.

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

[michigancat]

that hacker guy also rated kayak above hipmunk

[Boom Roasted]

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.

[BarneyR]

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!

[CNS]

Used Hotwire for my New Orleans trip hotel this summer.  Hotel site wants $249/night and I booked it for $107/night.   

[MakeItRain]

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.

[michigancat]

Just noticed ITA matrix will search Southwest (as Airtran). Nice.

[steve dave]

Just noticed ITA matrix will search Southwest (as Airtran). Nice.

Yeah, I know it's nice dork

[michigancat]

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!

[steve dave]

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

[michigancat]

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.

[steve dave]

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

[GoodForAnother]

SFO is pretty shitty

[steve dave]

SFO is pretty shitty

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

[GoodForAnother]

SFO is pretty shitty

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

haha, what a slut SFO is

[SkinnyBenny]

Used Hotwire for my New Orleans trip hotel this summer.  Hotel site wants $249/night and I booked it for $107/night.   

CNS Casey was it the Marriott that is basically right on Canal? I bet it was.

[michigancat]

ita doesn't do the Airtran/SW search any more. Thanks Obama.

[SkinnyBenny]

CNS CASEY!  :clockfoottappingguy:

[chum1]

Million dollar idea:  travel dating website.

http://miscellaneousmischief.com/wingman.html

[CNS]

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).

[Trim]

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. 

[Trim]

Awardwallet and google chrome's open in new tab.