Airfare search sites

[amerikiwiroo]

Hi, I'm planning my family's first trip to Disney World and we live in Australia.

In figuring our US domestic flights, what search sites are recommended for finding the best fares? Are there some that you can set up a fare notice to alert you when prices drop? Also, I know Southwest fares don't show up on some of the search engines (at least they didn't when I lived in the US 10 years ago)--are there other discount airlines to check separately as well?

We need to book flights from Los Angeles to Chicago, Chicago to Orlando, and then back to Los Angeles. Any advice for finding the best fares would be greatly appreciated!

 

[MaleficentRN]

I like Kayak.com. They offer alerts, let you know how likely the price is to raise or drop, let you view if it's less expensive to travel a couple of days later or earlier or to travel to a nearby airport. I think only Southwest is not on that site.

 

[BadPinkTink]

I use skycanner.com and Southwest is on it

 

[sunshinehighway]

I like google flights. It's easy to look at different dates without changing your search.
Theres a cool map feature that shows airports and prices from your selected city. It's fun to play around with it.

 

[kathy884]

Just an FYI -- Southwest Airlines is now the largest carrier in the US, so if you are checking for flights on a site that does not include them (most), be sure to also check out Southwest.com. With no baggage fees for your first two bags, and the refreshing policy of no cancelation or change fees, just use monies for another flight within the year they are my airline of choice, all other things being equal.

 

[amerikiwiroo]

Thank you all for your help! Off to compare the recommendations.

 

[DisMommyTX]

Orbitz, Kayak, and Hotwire are good options for comparison as well.

 

[CruzTerri]

airfarewatchdog.com is another site that you can set to notify you.

 

[nancygirl1]

I've been planning a trip and have used Kayak for the main stream carriers, but have had to check Southwest separately. I haven't used any others this time. They really didn't seem to have anything better than what I found on Kayak. I also always check Jet Blue separately even though it shows on Kayak just to make sure the fare is the same as on Kayak. I have looked mainly at Southwest and Jet Blue because of the lack of baggage fees (SW first 2 are free & JB the first is free).

I decided not to book using a third party booking agency (Expedia, Travelocity, etc.) because we had a problem with a Jet Blue flight back in January and their agent said that they could have helped us more financially (needed to re-book a cancelled flight) if we had booked directly with them. So I ended up booking this time directly with Jet Blue and SW.

I have found that the fares go down later on Mondays into Tuesday evening. The closer you get to the weekend the higher they go. Most search engine sites now have fare alert notices.

Also, I read somewhere that said to leave the number of passengers at 1 and search that way on the airline websites. Sometimes there are discounted airfares that are available for a limited number of seats and they won't show up if you put in a larger number of passengers. For example, there are 5 of us. When I left the passenger at 1 then a lower fare showed up with 3 seats left. I could have called and booked 3 at that price and paid the higher price for the other 2. When I put in 5 only the higher fare showed. I ended up waiting long enough that the price dropped anyway. But, that could be something to keep in mind.

 

[amerikiwiroo]

Great tips Nancygirl! Thank you.

 

[Madteaparty001]

Google flights has the least annoying format from what I have seen, southwest I've always had to check on their website. Make sure you're deleting your cookies and searching in incognito mode, supposedly sites you visit repeatedly will increase in price if they know you're planning a trip.