There are many online resources for travel needs. It is always a good idea to research as much as you can before making decisions.
After a while, we found that we always ended up going with a hand-full of websites. Here is our list:
Search for Flights
In our experience, the search results from Skyscanner and Kayak frequently complement each other. We always check both for the best deals and then book directly with the airlines.
Skyscanner: Skyscanner is a nice flight searching tool that pulls flight information from various online flight booking agents on one page so we don’t need to go to every booking website to check the price.
- It allows an open search without specifying where from and where to. This is very useful when we are not sure where to go and just want to see some prices or when we are flexible with the airports farther away from our destinations (which may not qualify for “nearby” airports) but with a good price.
- It allows an open search for an entire month. This is helpful when we are flexible with our travel dates. However, the website doesn’t always return prices for all possible date combinations. It seems to only display prices for those dates which a search has been performed on. This limits the use of the functionality quite a bit.
Kayak: Kayak is an online flight booking agent that we have used many times. It also pulls flight information from different online flight booking agents.
- It allows an open search without specifying where to. We only need to put in a home airport.
- It allows an open search with flexible travel dates, including flexible depart and return dates, plus and minus up to 3 days, flexible weekend dates up to 4 weeks, and any flexible dates up to 4 weeks when putting in a duration.
After finding out the best deals from the above two websites, we always book directly with the airlines. Because
- The price from the official airline website is the same or sometimes even lower than the online flight booking agents.
- We want to use the airline rewards. We are enrolled in ANA mileage club, which allows us to convert the mileage to so called “sky coins” for purchasing ANA tickets or travel products.
So, wherever and whenever you plan your travels, it makes sense to get the most information with the least effort in order to make a good decision on your next adventure. Using these websites may be all you need to do or may just provide a good start. Happy Hopping!
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