Travel tips in travel books and on travel websites often advise travelers to “pack light.” In my experience, these sources of travel information don’t go far enough. The earlier bill would have required online travel agencies to clarify more explicitly on their sites that they aren’t directly affiliated with hotel chains and airlines, among other things. Offers and savings are based on information available on these sites.
In some searches, I discovered that the flight options included by default with my vacation package had ridiculously long layovers or undesirable departure times (4:30 a.m., anyone?). Expedia recommends that consumers avoid using online search engines to find its customer service number until the search engines can ensure they have fixed the problem.
Hotwire often offers the best published deals on cars by collecting rates from its eight rental car company partners, including Alamo, Enterprise and Hertz. Travala is also a popular option as it offers you the opportunity to book over 2,000,000 hotels and properties in more than 80,000 destinations globally, according to its website.
Online booking sites are all about dates, rates, and space, meaning their goal is to put heads in beds, says Misty Ewing at Virtuoso luxury travel network. Google Flights – Google launched with a pretty rigid offering (specific dates and destinations) and rarely offered competitive prices, but the search function seems to be getting better so I’m keeping an eye on this one.
Travelocity ranks as one of Kim Komando’s favorite sites to get good travel deals. Pros: Of all the flights I checked this was the most convenient in timely manner and comfortable. Booking travel sites do more than just help people find travel services online. For some searches, it came up with nothing (when other websites found dozens of cars), and when did offer results, we weren’t impressed with its limited customization options.