The Juggle Zone: Bargain Blog

There are numerous airfare searching websites out there (Travelocity, Orbitz, Priceline, etc.). Way back before these existed, I used to use Windows software from United Airlines called United Connection (or something like that). I haven't tried it lately, but it was my favorite (most powerful searching ability). I have been a user of Travelocity for sometime now, though in a recent quest for decent fare I tried some of the others. In the past, I have never found much difference between any of the searches, and the need to register to view results on some is annoying. Despite this, I tried Orbitz and was pleasantly surprised with their search options, most notably the ability to select a travel length and departure/return date range. The results are displayed in grid format.

The strange thing is that I have yet to find a fare exclusive to these sites. In other words, I can search for fares with these sites, then go directly to the airlines website and order the tickets from them, saving the processing fee that they all seem to charge, and sometimes earning bonus mileage as well.

Then there's JetBlue, which chooses to not be listed by these search engines, so you have to check them individually. At the moment, they look cheapest, as they don't have the standard airline booking rules.