If you want to find good travel deals on airfare, the Internet is the place to go. According to Damon Darlin, editor for Lonely Planet Guidebooks (Sifting Data to Uncover Travel Deals, The New York Times), and Jay Cooke, (Cooke’s Tour: 5 Top Travel Sites, Macworld), there are lots of good sites that will help you with planning and save you money, to boot. Here are some of their recommendations:
- Farecast (www.farecast.com) This can predict the direction of airfares on particular routes. It has a new feature that distinguishes whether a fare is a real deal or not. When you enter a departure city, a list of deals will pop up with designations such as “record low” or “$105 less than the average low.”
- Airfarewatchdog.com (www.airfarewatchdog.com) Cooke says this site digs deep for deals and includes listings for Southwest and JetBlue.
- SmarterTravel (www.smartertravel.com) Cooke says this site has consistent, steady deals. He also says you have to check as many travel sites as possible, because they are all just brokers. If one site sells out of a cheap flight, another may still have cheap seats available.
- Southwest Airlines (www.southwest.com) If Southwest flies where you’re going, they’re likely to offer a good bargain fare. So, it’s a good idea to check out its offerings. Many travel sites do not include Southwest or JetBlue flights.
- Don’t forget to check out major travel sites such as Orbitz (www.orbitz.com), Travelocity (www.travelocity.com), Expedia (www.expedia.com) and more specialized sites, including Kayak (www.kayak.com), CheapTickets (www.cheaptickets.com) and SideStep (www.sidestep.com).