1. Price is the undisputed king in the travel world. So you might be surprised to learn that since more than 95 percent of the online travel marketplace is controlled by just two companies (Expedia and Priceline), many travel sites found the exact same flights and cars for the exact same price. The top picks all consistently find you the best prices for the cheapest flights and rentals – though Booking.com won top crown for finding the cheapest price overall and Priceline's unique tool help to luck into getting a great deal.
2. Flexible date tools let you see what happens if you slightly adjust dates for a proposed trip.
3. Comparison Features - Whether tracking down the right hotel amenities, locating a specific car type, or making sure our plane ticket covers baggage fees, it's crucial to have great comparison features on a travel site.
4. Usability - At its most basic, the best travel site should have pages that load quickly, display relevant results, and don't leave us wondering if we’ve accidentally clicked on spam.
The 3 Best Travel Sites
1. Booking.com - Low airfares and comprehensive hotel searches, but not great for finding a rental car.
After tracking prices for the same flight across two weeks, only one website truly impressed: Booking.com. It won the prize for finding our flights at its ultimate lowest cost and was always at the middle or lower end for ticket prices among our tested picks. Frequently, Booking.com charged between $9 and $18 less than the average ticket price for that day.
Has great filtering tools - They also make it easy to find, filter, and compare flights, so that you can pick the one that best fits your needs. Simply search for your flight by selecting trip type (round trip, one way, or multi-city), your departure and arrival cities, dates, number of travelers, and what class you'd like (economy, business, etc.). We were also impressed by how many options and customizations they offer. You can filter your search by airline, number of stops, preferred airport, and departure or arrival time.
Thorough hotel comparison - We also loved the thoroughness of its hotel booking site – it has the most filters of any travel site we looked at, so you can get a clear picture of exactly what you’re paying for. You’ll be able to see whether each room has air conditioning, a private bathroom, a flat-screen TV, free Wi-Fi, and 20 more possible amenities.
There are points to consider such as no flexible dates. The primary weakness is that it doesn’t have a flexible dates tool. It’s a useful first stop if you’ve already nailed down the days you want to travel, but if you’re interested in exploring flight costs on multiple days, weeks, or even months, the easiest option is to go through runner-up Expedia.
No car or cruise search options - They also don’t have a cruise search feature or suggested trips available. The car rental section of the website was also hit-or-miss on whether it actually found any cars. For some searches, it came up with nothing (when other websites found dozens of cars), and when they did offer results, we weren’t impressed with its limited customization options. But if you’re looking to book a plane ticket or a hotel room, Booking.com is our top pick.
2. EXPEDIA - helped us track down our perfect car, although we weren’t impressed by its mediocre flight and hotel searches.
Excellent car rental customization - If you know exactly the type of car you want, they will help you find it. In addition to choosing the time and place for pick up and drop off, you can choose to only search for cars rented by a specific company and request special equipment. You can also specify manual or automatic transmission, how important air-conditioning is to you, and whether you need to have an unlimited or limited mileage policy. We particularly liked how you can look at cars within a given daily price range, and if you have a specific neighborhood you’re trying to pick up or return a car in, they can search for that too.
Helpful car rental map - We liked having a map when searching for car rentals within a city so we could easily see whether a company was on the north or south side of town. This feature was particularly helpful when searching for locations near the airport. Expedia’s map outclasses the competition, although it’s a little tricky to use — you have to leave the map view to add filters (like car type or location) and then go back to see how your preferences affected the map.
Points to consider? Mediocre airfare pricing. Expedia rates thoroughly average when it comes to airfare prices. While Expedia never amazed us with low prices, it also didn’t overcharge us for a ticket, like Priceline. Again, if you’re looking for the best airfare, we recommend starting your search with Booking.com, which tended to find lower prices.
Lackluster hotel searches - Expedia does offer some of the most important filters for hotels — price, star rating, customer rating, and a few amenities — but that’s about it. If you want to truly hone in on the perfect hotel with non-smoking rooms and various neighborhood filters (so your Paris trip will land you closer to the Louvre than the Moulin Rouge), you’ll want to try Booking.com.
3. PRICELINE - If you have the time and the patience to hunt for the best deal on a car rental, Priceline’s Name Your Own Price Tool can score you a great deal (if you’re lucky).
.Is known for its 'Name Your Own Price Tool', although unfortunately it only applies to car rentals now (they discontinued it for airfares in 2016). It works like this: you select your dates, location, the basic type of car you want, and enter the price you’re willing to pay, per day, for that car. If your bid wins, you’ll be connected through to the purchase page to finalize your details. If not, you can wait 24 hours to make the same bid or try adjusting your preferences.
Before you buy, you’ll see how many people the car can fit, the approximate size of the luggage compartment, its transmission type, and whether it has air conditioning. But you won’t know the exact details of the car you’re renting, or where you’re renting it from, until you’ve completed the purchase.
The trade-off for not knowing the specifics of your rental car can be some serious savings. Our bid for a luxury car at $10 per day for three days was accepted, even though the tool briefly warned us that our price was “too low.” Depending on how busy your destination is during your planned trip, and the popularity of the car you’re requesting, you might be able to score a great deal.
Here's something you ought to consider, though. They are generally expensive. In every search except for when we lucked out with the Name Your Own Price Tool, Priceline always ended up charging a higher price for the same flight or car rental. When we searched for the cheapest flight, Priceline consistently charged around $50 more than the average.
However, there are a lot of people who don't mind and go along with this option first. You now have some excellent choices. Explore them and see what's best for you. Enjoy your trip.
No comments:
Post a Comment