What's the best airfare metasearch site? In the beginning, there were airline sites.
Then there were online travel agencies, such as Expedia, Hotwire, Orbitz, Priceline and Travelocity. And then about 10 years ago came the travel metasearch sites, sometimes called search sites or aggregators. All three shopping models still exist and new players are entering the U.S. market, such as U.K. -based Skyscanner. But as online shopping becomes more complex, metasearch may be more important than ever. The lowest-fare conundrum Who doesn't want to find the absolute lowest price? The fact is, there are all kinds of travelers with all kinds of wants and needs, so there is no one-size-fits-all when it comes to airfares. As for those tools, Kayak still offers the best: a full array that allows you to easily and intuitively tailor departure and arrival times to the half hour, as well as add or subtract airlines, stops, airports, cabin classes, flight leg and layover times, aircraft types -- and of course price ranges.
Study will make you question prices on travel websites. When searching for a flight or hotel room online, it's hard to know if you're getting the best price.
A new study from Northeastern University looked at how much prices change based on the user, and found a greater percentage of inconsistencies on travel sites than other kinds of retailers. The study looked at personalized prices over a couple weeks for hundreds of actual users, as well as for fake accounts. “Overall, we find numerous instances of price steering and discrimination on a variety of top e-commerce sites,” the study authors wrote, while also noting that most of the experiments on the 16 sites did not find price steering or price discrimination.
The travel websites in the study — "Measuring Price Discrimination and Steering on E-commerce Web Sites" — include CheapTickets, Travelocity, Priceline, Orbitz, Hotels.com and Expedia, among others. Among the findings: Charging people different prices is legal, and in some cases can be a good thing for consumers. 빨라지고 늘어나는 여행 ‘직구족’ > News. 여행정보신문에 오신것을 환영합니다. 여행정보신문에 오신것을 환영합니다.
여행업계 대표신문, 세계여행신문. 한국관광신문. Travel News, Airline Industry News, & Hotel Industry News by Skift. Tnooz - Talking travel technology. Tnooz - Talking travel technology. Six myths of air travel search on the web. Facebook, at a recent travel conference in the US, suggested its role as one of being in the “happiness business”.
Furthermore, citing some internal research, an official from the omnipresent social network went on to show how the American general public actually gets a pretty big high from the process of planning travel, and that it lasts longer than the act of travelling itself. But does this happiness extend to when consumers are searching for flights? Some cearly do not think so. A recent article in the Detroit Free Press pointed out that airfares were not fair, and that searching for appropriate flights and fares isn’t fun. So perhaps it’s time to think through the process from the consumer’s perspective.
Myth 1 – Air search is simple and easy Searching for flights can be a daunting task for internet users. Invariably, it is difficult to find prices and routes, and there is a bewildering array of options. Users can spend hours looking at different possible options and sites. Why? Biggest misconceptions about finding the lowest airfares. Don't be fooled by booking websites: Travel agents have tricks up their sleeves that automated websites have never heard of.
(iStock) There's a "magic" hour to find the best prices. This is the biggest myth of all. Airfares can change minute-by-minute and day-by-day, as can seat inventory at the lowest fares. This is especially true now that consumers can put non-refundable fares on hold for 24 hours with no-penalty cancellation. While it's true that if you fly on a Tuesday or Wednesday you'll get the lowest fares, it's false that you can only buy on those days to get the best deals. Last minute fares are always more expensive. How to Find the Lowest Airfare? These Three New Strategies. "Don’t listen to anyone who says there’s a magic time or day to buy airfare," says one expert.
Here are three new tips that really do work. "Google 'best time to buy airfare' and you’ll find 50 different competing theories. And they’re all wrong," George Hobica told me over lunch the other day. George is the founder of AirfareWatchdog, the airfare deals site that includes some low fares not found on other sites. "Don't listen to anyone who says there’s a magic time or day to buy airfare. Sounds like a ton of work. Keep your airfare search results page open on your computer screen all day.