Many people would ask which websites to use while booking tickets, here I would like to share with you the 3 websites that I used the most while searching:
1. ITA Software http://matrix.itasoftware.com/
It’s a powerful searching engine under Google. You can search either return, one-way, or multi-destination tickets as you wish. Among all, multi-destination search is especially useful when you have complicated itinerary. In addition, you could set different filters for your search, including flexible time, low fare calendar, transit via specific cities, preferred airlines, maximum transit stops, and preferred departure and arrival time etc…One important note is that this website only provides searching results but not direct booking. You will still need to go to the websites of respective airlines to purchase the tickets. If anyone is interested in this, I could write a separate article for it. However, there is one limitation to this website – most budget airlines are not included.
2. Skyscanner http://www.skyscanner.com/
Many people should be familiar with this website. It’s similar to ITA where you could set filters, and it includes budget airlines as well. However, I do not like to use it nowadays as not only because there are a lot of ads, but also the searching results are often not updated.
3. Google Flights https://www.google.com/flights/
This is the website that I like the most other than ITA. In addition to the fact that it includes budget airlines, there is one function that really makes it stand out – explore destinations. It is especially useful when you have a specific date for travelling but not sure where to go. Other than that, the website’s low-fare calendar could be very useful to save you bucks if you have pre-defined itinerary but flexible dates.
Other than the website searching above, sometimes you must bear in mind on how the ticket price works:
- Try to break your ticket search by sectors, because it is highly possible that no single airlines provide a reasonable fare for your route. Normally the tickets from big hubs would be cheaper (more competition, for example ticket from Hong Kong will be often cheaper than tickets from Taipei)
- Long-haul tickets are not necessarily more expensive than short-haul ones. Budget airlines is not always cheaper than traditional ones. One-way ticket price for traditional airlines are always higher than half of return ticket price. However there are still exceptions depending on the strategy of the company. For example, EVA airlines one-way ticket originating from Europe back to Asia is extremely cheap sometimes.
Hope this information is useful to you guys. Please also let us know what else you would like to know regarding trip planning so that we could write more 🙂