In the ongoing search for good air fares, I have found another site for airfare booking. Vayama is a site that offers international fares. The prices seem a little lower.

Another, farecast.com can show if prices are on the up or the down swing. They'll be happy to email you updates (just what we obsessive searchers need)

Kayak is another overall good search~ they search several sites at once. I've heard they are owned by some of the other search engine sites (like orbitz) I have booked flights with them before without troubles.

Has anyone ever used vayama or farecast? They are both new to me...
We are always on the hunt!

This isn't a booking site, but I mentioned in an earlier post Dohop, which is very good for comparison, especially since it factors in all those extras that not everyone shows you up front.

This was part of Budget Travel's 105 Travel Tips.

- Roz

DoHop is an interesting site. It quotes outrageously low prices for flights, enough to make an old heart flutter.

When you click 'book it' it takes you to a Spanish language site Despegar.com. A booking site where they add 1000-2000$ in fees and taxes.

curses...foiled again!

quote:

When you click 'book it' it takes you to a Spanish language site Despegar.com. A booking site where they add 1000-2000$ in fees and taxes.

I think they only recently added an option to go directly to booking. I didn't see that when I first checked out Dohop.

But they are not linked to a single booking site. It depends on where their search engine finds the fare -- it can be a booking agency, or it can be the airline web site. When I looked at it just now, I did not see that Despegar option for the sample flight I chose. And the flights I looked at did include taxes and fees.

I don't think I would try to book through the Dohop link anyway. I would probably just go directly to the site where they list the price and come in on my own. I thought it was mostly a useful way of getting a sense of the price ranges and seeing many options from one search.

- Roz

quote:

But they are not linked to a single booking site. It depends on where their search engine finds the fare -- it can be a booking agency, or it can be the airline web site.

Exactly. Plus, all of these meta-search engines search somewhat different groups of online agencies, consolidators, and airlines, with different software, so they turn up different results. Dohop and its ilk tend to include low-cost airlines that don't usually appear on some of the others like Kayak, Sidestep, or Mobissimo.

Some meta-search engines do so better for some types of trips or destinations but worse for others, and ease of customizing searches varies, too. So it's a good idea to check out a couple of them for any given trip. And probably a good idea not to get too obsessed by the idea that someone, somewhere has an even lower fare. Not that I personally would ever obsess like that. No, not me.

I looked at dohop, from my home to Paris the fares were all at least $1,300 but one that was $432!! Wow!! Book that guy...but, when I clicked Select that $432 fare was only the FIRST leg of my trip, the rest of the trip took me into the $1300 range. Why the other fares were to the final destination but this one was only the first leg is a mystery. I don't like mysteries when comparing fares so I'll probably still use sidestep, booking buddy, etc where you can compare the total fares to total fares.

PS None of the fares were non-stop because I'm near a regional airport so I have to make at least 1 change of planes.

farecast is good :-) I like sidestep too.

Air Tickets International ATI- is another site that offers discounted fares. The trick with these is that you don't get the actual itinerary until you purchase the tickets.

Is there anyone who would buy a ticket, not knowing where you make connections, not knowing times... to save $100?
Sandi

I just booked my Italy trip through Vayama yesterday and got a great price. Well, except I missed the overnight layover in Frankfurt until I hit confirm. No going back. I was surprised when my confirmation email only said it was the 'booking confirmation of my trip' and it would take up to 72 hours to receive my 'ticketing confirmation'.

I'm still waiting. Fingers crossed.

We did make an attempt to phone Vayama after realizing my blunder. We were on hold I would guess close to one hour. The agent who took our call was very nice but said she could not find an alternative for us that wasn't going to be super costly. So that was a bit of a let down.

If you are wondering the price, we got two tickets on Lufstana. HOU - ROM & VCE - HOU
Both with Frankfurt layovers.
$707 pp

I found the fare originally through Kayak which I absolutely LOVE

UPDATE

The Vayama ticket confirmation email came late last night. It doesn't look much different than the booking confirmation email but oh well.

We often purposely plan an overnight in Amsterdam on our way home from Italy so we can run into town for the night and catch a little of a different city. It is super easy due to great train service. It does not cost more for the flight because we are there less than 24 hours. The airlines check our luggage all the way through and we just carry an overnight bag. Is that doable in Frankfurt? I have often wondered this.

Here is an article from today's NY Times Practical Traveler column with some good tips for finding less crowded planes. For example, Air India flights to Europe are generally less crowded than European or American airlines. Also Air Tahiti and Air New Zealand are carriers to consider.

The article mentions Vayama, referenced above, as a good site to research these flights.

- Roz

I don't see the point of Farecast. Where does it predict prices? It dosn't, I tried dates for fall Venice. It gives me a no tax fare on NWA, where is the prediction factor here?

Looks like pure bait and switch to me. RR

Farecast only has predictions for domestic US flights. Click on "Learn how" after "Find predictions...." in the search box. Farecompare.com has international flights. Not that I'm sure how much you can rely on either's predictions, but that's what they claim to do.

I have booked CDG to BKK Dec 6 to Mar 6 with ebookers (France, where I now live) for the equivalent of about $860. I tried Vayama and their cheapest fare was almost $1400. I tried Dohop and their cheapest fare was over $1400.

Try ebookers next time.