This week has been pretty exciting for travel search. First Kayak got injected with another $11.5M to fund their marketing campaign and international expansion, then AP released an article entitled "Review: Kayak Best Travel Search Engine," and then Kayak released a feature that's been missing on travel search sites for a long time: flexible date search. I'll talk about the article first and then review Kayak's flexible date search feature.
I think there's certainly an argument that Kayak is at the top of the pack, in terms of travel search engines, but I'm not sure what criteria the author used in determining that. Picking 11 O/D pairs is not exactly an objective way to determine who has the best fares and I didn't see an objective chart of features. A proper analysis would have many different dimensions with a lot of different searches. Consider this: I just did a search on all three engines from SJC->TPA. Kayak's cheapest fare was $356 on Frontier/United at Cheaptickets, but it was SFO->MCO->SFO. SideSteps's cheapest fare was $355 on Delta/Continental at Orbitz, but it was OAK->MCO->OAK. For those of you who don't know, driving from TPA to MCO is a long, long drive, because I4 is a bitch of a road, so I'd hardly consider MCO an alternate airport. Mobissimo didn't search alternate airports and got a cheapest price of $433 on American with the proper SJC->TPA itinerary. Thus, a proper analysis would have taken into account direct itineraries vs. cheapest itineraries. One might even separate the cheapest "reasonable" itinerary, e.g. one that departs and leaves from the same airport that's within an hour from the original airport. Also, one should consider groups of flights, like US->US flights, US->International Flights, and International->International flights. I'll bet that Mobissimo kicks butt internationally, for example.
Anyway, the point of that diatribe is that you don't know who has the cheapest flight from just a couple of searches. You need to fiddle around with the parameters to get a more objective view. Therefore, one should take the AP article with a grain of salt. One of these days, I'll get around to doing the analysis myself. If anyone wants to pay me for my time, I'll generate a really nice report =)
Onto Kayak's flexible date search. Kudos to Kayak for releasing a feature that's been sorely missing in the travel search world! I usually use Orbitz to find the cheapest date to fly, then head off to the travel search engines to find even better rates. I tried a search for a trip to Buffalo (note, you need to be logged in for this to work) and found an extremely cheap fare on Delta. Wow! Only $200 bucks! Granted, the interface isn't nearly as good as Orbitz's Calendar Matrix display. It's impossible for me to see what the cheapest fare is for a given departure/return date pair. Also, Kayak clearly isn't returning all fares that it could be searching. The Buffalo search returned 835 results, even though it was showing 2 departure dates and 7 return dates; a Buffalo search for specific dates returned 576 results, for comparison. This makes sense from a business perspective, because Kayak couldn't run 14 different full searches for each pair without destroying their look-to-book ratio. Nonetheless, I think it's great that Kayak has implemented this, because it's a very useful tool for finding ultra-cheap fares.
I hope the entire summer is a series of volleys among the travel search engines. This could be fun!
Technorati Tags: kayak sidestep mobissimo flexibledatesearch travelsearchengines
The Rolling Stones postpone a show in the US to allow singer Sir Mick Jagger time to rest his voice.
Posted by: Malachi Salcedo | July 05, 2007 at 11:15 AM
TV host Oprah Winfrey gives audience members $1,000 (£526) each to donate to a charitable cause.
Posted by: Kane Perreault | July 05, 2007 at 11:25 AM
A musical about the witches from The Wizard of Oz breaks West End box office records, its producers say.
Posted by: Milo Acker | July 05, 2007 at 11:31 AM
Doctor Who takes three prizes at the National Television Awards in a repeat of its success last year.
Posted by: Frankie Phillips | July 05, 2007 at 11:52 AM
Record company EMI sign a deal with the estate of crooner Dean Martin to use the singer's likeness.
Posted by: Irving Joiner | July 05, 2007 at 12:09 PM
Veteran game show host Bob Barker is stepping down from hosting The Price is Right after 35 years.
Posted by: Abel Bader | July 05, 2007 at 12:10 PM
Record company EMI sign a deal with the estate of crooner Dean Martin to use the singer's likeness.
Posted by: Irving Joiner | July 05, 2007 at 12:11 PM
Jonathan Ross is dubbed "risque" by Ofcom but not in breach of rules over an interview with David Cameron.
Posted by: Shamar Frost | July 05, 2007 at 12:44 PM
A musical about the witches from The Wizard of Oz breaks West End box office records, its producers say.
Posted by: Elmer Toliver | July 05, 2007 at 01:12 PM
The judge who put coded messages in his Da Vinci Code plagiarism trial ruling has written another.
Posted by: Declan Mcmillan | July 05, 2007 at 01:21 PM
Madonna says she may adopt another child from abroad following her proposed adoption of a Malawian boy.
Posted by: Brendon Louis | July 05, 2007 at 02:24 PM
buy meridia
buy tramadol
buy carisoprodol
buy tenuate
buy ambien
buy levitra
buy prozac
buy zoloft
buy ultram
buy allegra
buy cialis
buy diazepam
buy adderall
buy adipex
buy vicodin
buy vaniqa
buy viagra
buy soma
buy fioricet
buy didrex
buy alprazolam
buy lasix
buy hydrocodone
buy valtrex
buy paxil
buy xenical
buy propecia
buy phentermine
buy valium
buy ephedra
lg ringtones
mobile ringtones
Rihanna ringtones
verizon ringtones
Beyonce ringtones
real ringtones
cellular ringtones
movie ringtones
mosquito ringtones
funny ringtones
mp3 ringtones
nextel ringtones
nokia ringtones
cingular ringtones
tracfone ringtones
phish ringtones
polyphonic ringtones
eminem ringtones
motorola ringtones
music ringtones
sprint ringtones
samsung ringtones
kyocera ringtones
gratis ringtones
yahoo ringtones
phone ringtones
shakira ringtones
fergie ringtones
tv ringtones
24 ringtones
Posted by: lopushok | July 05, 2007 at 02:40 PM
The Red Hot Chili Peppers are leading the way at this years MTV Europe music awards with four nominations.
Posted by: Elliott Goad | July 05, 2007 at 02:43 PM
Colombia's vice president is "baffled" by Kate Moss's success following cocaine allegations.
Posted by: Glen Shields | July 05, 2007 at 02:52 PM
Colombia's vice president is "baffled" by Kate Moss's success following cocaine allegations.
Posted by: Glen Shields | July 05, 2007 at 02:53 PM
Microsoft and Peter Jackson postpone the making of a film based on the Halo video game after backers pull out.
Posted by: Kyler Longoria | July 05, 2007 at 03:10 PM
Jonathan Ross is dubbed "risque" by Ofcom but not in breach of rules over an interview with David Cameron.
Posted by: Leonard Bradford | July 05, 2007 at 03:39 PM
Veteran game show host Bob Barker is stepping down from hosting The Price is Right after 35 years.
Posted by: Yusuf Pichardo | July 05, 2007 at 04:12 PM
Classical singer Russell Watson postpones his forthcoming UK tour after undergoing brain surgery.
Posted by: Ramiro Daigle | July 05, 2007 at 04:25 PM
Classical singer Russell Watson postpones his forthcoming UK tour after undergoing brain surgery.
Posted by: Ramiro Daigle | July 05, 2007 at 04:26 PM
All preparat FDA aproved:
Acyclovir ,
Ambien ,
Amoxicillin ,
Ativan ,
Celebrex ,
Cialis ,
Cialis Soft Tabs ,
Glucophage ,
Lasix ,
Levitra ,
Lipitor ,
Meridia ,
Paxil ,
Propecia ,
Prozac ,
Soma ,
Valium ,
Viagra ,
Viagra Soft Tabs ,
Xanax ,
Zoloft .
Posted by: Pharadei Marts | July 05, 2007 at 05:17 PM
Pop trio Atomic Kitten will reform to play a concert in support of jailed Liverpool football fan Michael Shields.
Posted by: Carson Bowen | July 05, 2007 at 05:24 PM
Colombia's vice president is "baffled" by Kate Moss's success following cocaine allegations.
Posted by: Darrin Nutter | July 05, 2007 at 05:35 PM
Social networking site MySpace is to block users from uploading copyrighted music to its pages.
Posted by: Seth High | July 05, 2007 at 06:07 PM
Microsoft and Peter Jackson postpone the making of a film based on the Halo video game after backers pull out.
Posted by: Emanuel Thiel | July 05, 2007 at 07:31 PM