natalie
May 30, 02, 9:53 am
I believe some airlines (cheapies) are not on the expedia/travelocity type websites. Do the websites list somewhere who are included? Any opinions on what site offers the most airline possibilities? Thank you.
Online Travel Booking and Bidding Agencies - websites with most airlines accessed
View Full Version : websites with most airlines accessed
ASUGymn
Jun 3, 02, 4:29 pm
Hi Natalie,
Orbitz advertises that they "offer consumers the widest selection of low airfares... searching 450 airlines - up to 2 billion flight and fare options - offering the most unbiased and comprehensive list of airfares and schedules."
One airline that you will not find on Orbitz, is Southwest. In 2001 Southwest sued Orbitz and Orbitz removed Southwest's flight information from their servers.
I have found only one service that allows you to search Southwest and other travel companies at the same time. That service is SideStep. SideStep did not have the same problems with Southwest as Orbitz, because Sidestep does not actually maintain the flight information on thier servers. In order to use SideStep you have to Download software which searches the airlines' sites for flights based on your requests. The URL for SideStep is http://www.sidestep.com
One other consideration is that the site with the most options may not have the best prices. Some airlines have marketing agreements with specific sites and offer those sites exclusive, unpublished fares. Unfortunately the only way to find these deals is to search each of the airlines and agency sites individually.
Consumer Reports Travel Letter just did a comparison of online travel agencies and picked Expedia as having the most available low fares. If you happen to see that newsletter, I think you will find the article interesting.
Hope this information is helpful. Please let us know what you discover. :-)
-S
Orbitz advertises that they "offer consumers the widest selection of low airfares... searching 450 airlines - up to 2 billion flight and fare options - offering the most unbiased and comprehensive list of airfares and schedules."
One airline that you will not find on Orbitz, is Southwest. In 2001 Southwest sued Orbitz and Orbitz removed Southwest's flight information from their servers.
I have found only one service that allows you to search Southwest and other travel companies at the same time. That service is SideStep. SideStep did not have the same problems with Southwest as Orbitz, because Sidestep does not actually maintain the flight information on thier servers. In order to use SideStep you have to Download software which searches the airlines' sites for flights based on your requests. The URL for SideStep is http://www.sidestep.com
One other consideration is that the site with the most options may not have the best prices. Some airlines have marketing agreements with specific sites and offer those sites exclusive, unpublished fares. Unfortunately the only way to find these deals is to search each of the airlines and agency sites individually.
Consumer Reports Travel Letter just did a comparison of online travel agencies and picked Expedia as having the most available low fares. If you happen to see that newsletter, I think you will find the article interesting.
Hope this information is helpful. Please let us know what you discover. :-)
-S