Frommers, a leader in telling what to see when you get there, and at reasonable cost, has published a careful data-based ranking of airfare searches to help find the best fare, too.
It may or may not be a surprise that the biggest names with the biggest ad budgets are not the winners. Top slots go to Momondo (1) and Skyscanner (2), both of which are not as widely-known, but offer some of the best fares and include more of the discount airlines than most.
In a heap at the bottom were Priceline (10) and Expedia/Travelocity/Orbitz (9), a single company that uses the same search engine across the names.
The Frommers research used a basket of 25 fares, all but one of them an international flight from the U.S. The outlier was a London-Barcelona fare to see how the searches did with European discounters. Each site was tested on buying a ticket 72 hours from flight time, and 6 weeks before flight time.
The survey report is worth reading, even if you’ve resolved to go with the top sites; it also includes extensive pros and cons for each site and an overview of trends in the industry. Some of the sites have features you might want to use even if you book elsewhere, including seat information, punctuality records and even fantasy ‘where can I go cheap’ functions. Check it our HERE
