wanted: travel site that doesn't make you pick a specific destination
 

we are wanting to travel over christmas break, returning in january.

the dates are somewhat concrete, but the destination is really flexible. after looking at expedia and traveloicty i am somewhat discouraged b/c both ask for "To" when making all selections. even if i click on the Caribbean section, i must select a specific locale.

is there a travel site that asks for "From" "Departure" and "Return" but doesn't make you pick one of hundreds of possibilities?

i tried Fare Compare, but i could not find fares they listed.

ideally, there would be a comprehensive search that asked for anything/everything but destination and gave me destinations in order of price, allowing us to make an informed decision.

Cost Rica? Hawaii? Caribbean (dozens of possibilities)? Mexico? South America? i would NEVER have checked SSA/REC/CNF in brazil had i not seen the AA MR thread. this is an example of something that i fear i am overlooking.

thanks in advance.

The closest to that I have been able to find is Kayak's Buzz page where you can choose a departure and then a geographic area as your destination. You can narrow down departures by month but not specific dates.

http://www.kayak.com/buzz

Please continue to follow this thread in the FT Online Booking Forum.
Thanks...
Obscure2k
TravelBuzz Moderator

I sympathize; my company just extended our holiday shutdown period. Two weeks off during the most expensive travel time of the year!

You can also try itasoftware.com. If you choose to search specific dates, you can specify a destination airport and then select "or any airport within" 300 miles. You can even specify a list of airport codes separated by semicolons (such as "LHR;GIG;BKK").

It's not perfect, but it's yet another tool to give you some more options.

My drill is to use Farecompare fare maps for the initial screening and then confirm the findings (if there's a lead) using 30-day search on matrix.itasoftware.com. Here's the FC map I'm referring to (substitute your airport code for ATL). You can zoom in on regions and/or search by specific airline.

FC often misses fuel surcharges or doesn't calculate the right fare, so you need a tool like ITA, which actually looks for seats and prices out what it finds.

*Most* of the time ITA fares will then be bookable (Orbitz even uses the same engine), but there are occasional disconnects or cases where ITA sees a seat but the airline site or someone else doesn't. I'd rate ITA about 85-90% accurate vs. nwa.com, for example.

If you're in a large city it also often pays to check the "Top 50 fares" on airfarewatchdog.com, as that is updated frequently. One day there may be nothing out of your city, the next day there might be 3 or 4. If something does make that list, though, there's a good chance of it being a real deal. I found out about the ATL-SCL RT $257 all-in one on AV earlier in the year through regular scans of that page.

Wow that is exactly what I have been looking for, thank you so much, Rusty!

Do you find the prices to be pretty accurate? When you compare them to the actual airline websites or can you book directly from this site with the price they advertised?

my problem (in an acknowledged limited amount of use) is that fare compare provides fares that are impossible to book/no longer exist.

i felt that it was a tremendous waste of time and detailed that here:

http://flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=887076

Mike/Rusty -

thanks for the ita reference. i have used ita for years, but after your suggestions i went back and focused my attention there.

it's not perfect, but absent another tool, it is probably the best for "open destination" searches b/c of the "or any airport w/n.." options.

i went through multiple city combination searches and extended these cities out to 300 miles to ultimately find a good destination during a VERY expensive kwanza/new years travel period.

thanks again.

Go for farecast.com or skyscanner.net :D

AirfareWatchdog!