These are price comparison sites aka 'travel search engines', or 'meta search engines'. Mostly they specialise in air fares, but some also cover holiday/travel prices. They are not travel agencies. Instead they direct you to the airline or operator to make your booking.
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| CheapFlights |
Cheapflights is the grandad on this list. When it first started (1996) it just dealt in low fares from a small list of airline discount shops, but now it has grown into one of the most popular travel sites in the UK, with a comprehensive range of holidays & flights from over 500 travel companies. |
| dohop.com |
Icelandic travel search engine launched in April 05 that simultaneously checks flights and fares across 80 low-cost and 570 traditional scheduled airlines. |
| Gooflight.com |
Simple and efficient low-cost fares search engine scanning 19 low-cost European airlines. |
| Kayak.co.uk |
Kayak first appeared in 2005 as one of a batch of fare-checking sites in the USA, but now there is a UK version and it has expanded into a full travel search engine, covering hotels as well as air fares. Kayak.co.uk currently (June 07) searches over 120 travel sites across the world, displaying prices and itineraries for hundreds of airlines and more than 160,000 hotels. The hotel service offers prices sliders, star ratings, and an accuracy promise and integrates its search results with Google Earth, so consumers are able to view the exact location of their hotel. |
| Nowfly |
Easy-to-use fare comparison site, now with added editorial content. Like Travel-Lists, Nofly is proudly independent with "no bias to one travel provider or another". |
| Openjet.com |
Cool-looking meta search engine/online agency, making fare comparisons on a selection of low-cost and mainstream airlines. |
| Skyscanner.net |
Small Edinburgh-based website launched in 2001 and now covering over 5000 flights on 180 airlines. It shows you what the fares were on a particular route when it last auto-searched (IE when the last visitor asked a few hours/days ago) and then gets updated prices for the flights you pick (thus updating the database). Bookings are made on the airline site. |
| Teletext |
The old workhorse of electronic distribution (remember those dreadful block graphics on your telly?) has a stylish site with plenty of bargain holidays, flights, cruises, ski holidays and ferrys crossings from selected travel companies. Teletext says it is "the only travel comparison site that checks and vets all of its suppliers". |
| TravelJungle |
An air fares search engine for flights ex-UK, launched in Oct 03. It searches 23 low cost carriers and 9 online travel agencies such as Expedia, Opodo, Travelocity and lastminute.com, to make sure it has the lowest price. |
| Travel supermarket.com |
Launched in the summer 03 by the company behind Moneysupermarket.com, on which it is modelled. Travelsupermarket is not really a supermarket at all, its an index to other shops. They automatically 'spider' or 'scrape' fare databases and travel company websites to come up with a comparison report of best prices. You make a selection and you are handed over to that company to make the booking. Travelsupermarket pocket the introduction fee. |
| Ufly4Less.com |
Budget airline fare-checker that started out not as a website, but as a piece of software that you bought and ran from your own PC. |
| Wegolo.com |
European low-fares checker site. Launched in 2004 and now checks fares from 40 low-cost airlines in the EU. |
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