My Flight Comparison and Search Experience
By Darren Cronian on Thursday, December 27th, 2007

I spent this morning searching for flights to Toronto for September 2008, and yep, I know it’s a while off, but I have to plan and save for my trip. For direct flights the prices were quite similar, with SideStep finding me the best deal at £174, one way.

My Flight Comparison and Search Experience

When I clicked on the SideStep link to take me to the airline website, I received a Microsoft VBScript error message; this meant I had to search all over again on the airlines website – which kind of ruined the experience.

Here’s what I found price wise.

Travel Supermarket
£229 with Air Transat

Kayak
£229 with Air Transat

SideStep
£174 with FlyGlobeSpan

Airline Network
£239 with Air Transat

With Airline Network you have to pay a £5 ‘adult fee’ which is a little bizarre, and in total it was £10 more, for the same airline, flight times and date. I was shocked to see some airlines charging over £500 because of a stop-over in New York.

I took a visit to Cheap Flights and don’t get me wrong there were tons of deals, and it was easy to choose my destination and departure airports, but I received a long list of deals with no advanced search options, i.e. one-way flights, direct flights etc.


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12 responses to “My Flight Comparison and Search Experience”

Shahin Fard | 2 January, 2008 at 5:43 pm

Hi,

Thanks for trying Cheapflights.co.uk

I know our site doesn’t have a lot of search functionality at the moment, but it’s coming very soon. If I say any more I’ll get in trouble!

If you have any other comments or suggestions to improve the site then I will pass your feedback on to our people in the product team.

Kind regards
Shahin Fard

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Shahin Fard | 2 January, 2008 at 5:45 pm

Darren..

Was the booking engine helpful?

http://www.cheapflights.co.uk/book-flights.aspx

Thanks
Shahin

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Darren Cronian | 2 January, 2008 at 6:14 pm

Hi, thanks for dropping by the blog.

No, I hadn’t seen the booking engine, but I’ll remember in the future.

I must admit that I scroll straight to the destinations as these are prominent on the site. In comparison [pardon the pun] to other flight comparison sites it’s not the most advanced searching facility.

What I do like about Cheap flights though is that there’s more choice from a wider range of travel company including small independent travel agencies.

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Shahin Fard | 2 January, 2008 at 6:20 pm

Darren,

I agree with what you are saying, and we’ve been working on improving the site for a whilte now. The new site which is currently being tested in the US (www.cheapflights.com) allows searching by advertiser/supplier, airline, date, one-way, and price. I’m going to drop you a message when the UK site is out :) – Thanks again

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Darren Cronian | 2 January, 2008 at 6:24 pm

That sounds great Shahin. Yes, please do let me know when the UK site re-launches and I’ll write a blog post about it.

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Rohan | 7 January, 2008 at 8:29 pm

We are looking for a flight to Austria and found them all to be easy sites with the exception of Airline Network, very slow website, and didn’t find as many deals as the other sites.

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Jim Sack | 7 January, 2008 at 9:42 pm

I approach it all a bit differently; first I search the net for prices, then I call a “bucket shop” to see if they can do better. They often can.

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Darren Cronian | 7 January, 2008 at 10:00 pm

Hi Jim,

Can you explain what you mean by a ‘bucket shop’?

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Jim Sack | 7 January, 2008 at 11:50 pm

A wholesaler. A company that buys blocks of seats at a discount and sells them at a discount… There is another common name, but it currently escapes me… Sorry.

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Jim Sack | 7 January, 2008 at 11:53 pm

I would add that it is also important to ask the total cost, not just the advertised price. Taxes and other initially hidden charges jack up prices. There is nothing stopping a company from throwing in a few of their own additional charges disguised in quasi-official sounding terms…

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Andrew Earle | 8 January, 2008 at 8:13 am

The other name for a “bucket” shop is a “consolidator”. They dont in fact buy blocks of seats but are offered discounted seat rates from the airlines due to the higher number of seats they sell. Most airlines now sell direct at the prices they offer to consolidators UNLESS you are buying accommodation too where fares called “IT Fares” can be used. IT stands for inclusive tour wand are supposed to only be used when making a holiday for clients.

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Jim Sack | 8 January, 2008 at 1:41 pm

Thank you, Andrew, for reminding me of how old and brittle my mind is becoming. I understand what you say. I have gotten better prices from consolidators frequently enough to have a general sense that I can turn to them and expect either comparable prices or a slight discount. I also prefer to work with a human and “explore” other options for a trip I have in mind.

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