International Airfare - Finding the Best Deal on International Flights

Plunkett Research refers to online travel booking as “the most successful niche of all of the world’s e-commerce efforts.” Since online travel booking is such a big business, it is no wonder that more and more booking agents are appearing online. There are literally dozens. So, when it comes time for you to book your international airfare, which one should you use? Is there any that you should avoid? Is there a booking service that consistently offers the lowest prices?

We tested airfare prices on 14 different booking services. The goal was not to find the lowest possible fare for a particular route. That would have meant employing other techniques such as choosing different departure dates, airports, lengths of stay, etc. The goal was merely to determine if any one online booking service consistently presented travelers with the lowest price on airfare compared to their competition.

Following is a list of the 14 online booking services surveyed:

Vayama.com

The Results of the International Airfare Experiment

The first thing to notice about the survey results is that the price of airfare can vary significantly from one booking service to another. We found airfare with prices that were nearly double those of other booking services.

For the 13 routes we researched, EconomyTravel.com had the highest fare on 9 routes and not once did they produce the lowest price. This did not seem very economical to us. Airfare.com gave the highest fare twice and both ClickandFly.com and OneTravel.com produced the highest fare once each.

Differently from the results above, there was not a single booking service that consistently produced the lowest fare. The number of lowest fares provided is as follows: ATI (4), Expedia (3), Jet Combo (2), Travelocity (2), Orbitz (2), Priceline (1) and ClickandFly.com (1). The reason there are more than 13 total is because two services produced the same low price on more than one occasion.

Since the concern of this experiment was the lowest international airfare of a particular route in comparison with other booking services, there were occasions in which the lowest fare meant having an extra stop or taking a longer route and/or having longer layovers. Sometimes choosing the lowest fare meant spending double the amount to time to get to your destination.

Within minutes, you can have a pretty good list of prices for any ticket you need by just visiting 3 or 4 websites. These include BookingBuddy.com, ATIflights.com, JetCombo.com and the airline that services the route you will fly. Idea Sparks has a list of links in their worldwide airlines directory.

Armed with the knowledge of current airfare prices, contact a trusted travel agent and let them go to work for you. If you don’t know one, just use the technique described above to find one. It may take a little extra work the first time but it will be well worth it. Finally, use some of the secrets found in Save on Airfare Secrets to save even more. The book is filled with secrets to saving on airfare, as well as, lodging, food and ground transportation.

Click here to download the full version of The International Airfare Booking Experiment

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