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The 12 Best Websites for Booking Flights at the Cheapest Prices [2024]

Katie Seemann

Senior Content Contributor and News Editor

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Stella Shon

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Table of Contents

Book direct through the airline’s website, price comparisons, final thoughts.

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Searching for a flight can be a bit overwhelming. There are so many factors: dates, times, price, fare class, airline, and more. Even when you know exactly when and where you want to fly, where should you look for the absolute best price?

Unfortunately, no website consistently has the lowest prices. Most of the popular OTAs (Online Travel Agencies) are usually in the same ballpark for the price, but not all offer the same benefits or search functionality.

We’ve combed through many popular OTAs to compare prices and show you the benefits and drawbacks of each site.

More often than not, booking directly through the airline’s website will give you the best price, or will at least be the same as the OTAs.

Some airlines, like Southwest, won’t even show up on sites like Expedia or Orbitz, so you have to book direct. It can also be the most simple way to book. If a problem arises, you don’t have to deal with a third party to get it resolved.

Another reason to book directly through an airline’s website is to use those frequent flyer miles — hooray for award flights!

Of course, to book through the airline’s website, you first need to know which airline has the best prices. There are lots of travel search engines and OTAs that can help you find the best deals so you know which airline’s website to visit. Some OTAs even offer perks that might make it worth booking someplace other than the airline’s site.

Hot Tip: A card such as The Platinum Card ® from American Express earns an impressive 5x Membership Rewards points per $1 spent on flights booked directly with airlines or with  AmexTravel.com on up to $500,000 on these purchases per calendar year.

Momondo is a travel metasearch engine similar to Kayak. The home page displays a simple search box where you can plug in your travel details.

One of the things we love about this site is the visual way it shows you the price trends for your flight. At first glance, you can tell if you could save some money by shifting around your travel dates a bit. It also offers a price tracker and lots of filtering options on the left-hand side of the screen.

Pros and Cons of Momondo

• Great price tracking tools
• Mix & Match fares require you to make 2 separate reservations; this is usually handled “behind the scenes” on other websites

Hot Tip: We cover the ins and outs of finding cheap airfare with this website in our guide to using Momondo .

Kayak is not an OTA. Rather, it’s a travel search engine — making it a great place to start your flight search.

The site compares prices from many websites in a single spot, so you can easily see the cheapest options . Most of the time, you’ll click through to a different site to complete your booking.

Kayak offers the ability to combine 2 one-way tickets (usually on different airlines) in 1 itinerary, which is a great way to save money on your flight. These itineraries can be pretty good deals and something that doesn’t always appear in search results of other websites.

A couple of new features were introduced in early 2024 — Kayak PriceCheck and Ask Kayak. Kayak PriceCheck allows you to upload a screenshot of an itinerary in the Kayak app, and Kayak will compare it to prices on hundreds of other sites to ensure you’re getting the best deal. Ask Kayak is an AI tool that helps you personalize your travel planning.

Pros and Cons of Kayak

• Ability to combine 2 one-way flights on a single itinerary
• Price Alerts to keep an eye on flight prices
• Kayak PriceCheck
• Kayak offers the most benefit when your travel plans are very flexible; many of its most valuable tools help you search for deals, so this site might be less appealing when you have a specific flight in mind

Bottom Line: For more information about Kayak’s travel search tools, check out the complete guide to booking travel with Kayak .

Daily Deals Special: Click here for up to 40% off at Expedia

Expedia is another tried-and-true OTA that people have been using since the 1990s. Back then, Expedia was a go-to source for searching and booking flights. But how does it stack up now?

You aren’t necessarily getting a better deal booking through Expedia, but you aren’t paying any more than you might on the airline’s website.

A nice perk of using Expedia is that it offers a rewards program called One Key. This program offers member pricing plus the ability to earn points for flights, hotels, car rentals, cruises, activities, and more.

The One Key loyalty program is also used by Hotels.com and Vrbo.

If you’re a member of an airline’s frequent flyer program, you’ll be happy to know that you can still earn airline miles on a flight booked through Expedia . However, you often won’t be able to earn miles/points toward status or be eligible for seat upgrades.

Pros and Cons of Expedia

• Earn and redeem points through the One Key program
• Booking through Expedia may limit your mileage earned toward elite status
• Your ability to be eligible for upgrades can be limited when you book through Expedia

Hot Tip:  For more information, check out our post about how to use Expedia to find great deals on flights, hotels, vacation packages (and more).

4. Priceline

Priceline is a popular OTA that introduced the Name Your Own Price tool and opaque bookings. These types of bookings can offer discounts, but many of the details are hidden until after the booking. The Name Your Own Price tool was discontinued for flights in 2016, so now Priceline operates like most other OTAs .

One of the nice things about searching for flights on Priceline is that it has a nice color-coded calendar, so you can easily see which days offer the lowest prices.

The search results on Priceline are clear and easy to navigate. As you scroll through your search results, you can easily see the cheapest nonstop options and things like flights with no change fees or early bird flights.

Another way to save money is by looking at Priceline’s Express Deals . These opaque bookings are ones where select details of the flight (like the departure, arrival times, or even the airline) are hidden until the booking is complete.

Pros and Cons of Priceline

• Express Deal flights can offer a good discount if you have some flexibility; many of the details of the flight, including airline and arrival and departure times, are hidden until the booking is complete
• Color-coded calendar and easy-to-read search results
• Price Match Guarantee
• Free online cancellation within 24 hours of booking (except for Express Deal flights)
• No rewards program
• Express Deal flights can be good deals, but they can sometimes be even more expensive than a standard booking

Bottom Line: For more information, check out the complete guide to booking travel with Priceline .

Daily Deals Special: Check out Orbitz’s Daily Deals

Orbitz is another reliable OTA that has been around since 2001. One thing that makes this site a little different is that it offers its own rewards program called Orbitz Rewards . You can earn Orbucks when you book hotels, flights, and vacation packages through Orbitz. However, you can only redeem Orbucks for hotels.

When booking a flight through Orbitz, you’ll earn 1% of your purchase price back as Orbucks (or 2% if you use the Orbitz mobile app). If you book a $500 flight, you will earn 5 Orbucks, which is worth $5 toward a hotel booking. Joining the Orbitz Rewards program is free.

Unfortunately, Orbitz sometimes charges a 1% booking fee . Keep an eye out for these on your trip summary page before finalizing your purchase, and factor them into your calculations to see if you’re getting a good deal or not. While earning Orbucks is great, paying a booking fee could wipe out all of the benefits.

Pros and Cons of Orbitz

• Orbitz Rewards lets you earn Orbucks that can be applied to hotel bookings
• 24-hour cancellation policy
• Low Price Guarantee: if you find a lower price for your flight on another website within 24 hours, Orbitz will refund the difference
• Flight booking fees

Bottom Line: For more information, check out our guide to booking travel with Orbitz .

Agoda is an OTA owned by Priceline. This website doesn’t offer much more than a simple search with limited filter options when looking for flights. Agoda is worth checking out if you’re looking for unique accommodations such as an apartment or private villa, but it doesn’t offer much when searching for flights.

One cool thing about Agoda is that the site is multilingual. You can select your language by clicking on the flag in the top menu bar.

Pros and Cons of Agoda

• Simple search functionality
• Multilingual option
• Limited filtering options for flights

Hot Tip: Agoda has a loyalty program called VIP, but it only applies to hotel stays. For more information, check out our guide to booking travel through Agoda .

Special: See these Hotwire Flight Deals

Hotwire is a popular OTA that has been around for almost 20 years.

The simple home page offers the main search box to input your departure and arrival cities as well as your desired dates of travel.

Hotwire can offer a great deal when booking a hotel along with your flight . Many times during the booking process, you’ll see pop-ups or prompts advertising great savings when booking a hotel at the same time. We tested it, and every time we priced out a Hotwire vacation package deal against purchasing a flight and hotel separately, the package deal was cheaper.

Bottom Line: If you need a hotel in addition to your flight, booking both together through Hotwire can save you money.

Another thing to remember when using Hotwire to find great flight deals is that sometimes a booking fee will be charged.

Pros and Cons of Hotwire

• Package deals that include a hotel stay can save money
• Low Price Guarantee
• Hotwire can sometimes charge a booking fee

Bottom Line: For more details about finding great deals, check out our complete guide to booking travel through Hotwire .

8. Skyscanner

Skyscanner is another travel search engine that does not sell flights directly. It shows you a list of flights and links to the airline’s website or OTA to complete the purchase.

This site excels for travelers with flexibility . In the search box, you can select Explore everywhere  to search for the cheapest destinations on your chosen dates.

Skyscanner operates like most other travel search sites if you have a set destination with specific dates.

Pros and Cons of Skyscanner

• Flexible searches, including Explore everywhere  and Multi-city search
• Easy to change language and currency
• Price alerts

Hot Tip:  For more information, check out our in-depth piece on Skyscanner . 

9. Travelocity

Travelocity is yet another OTA that has been around for a while and is very similar to the other websites we’ve been looking at.

On the plus side, there are some nice filtering options to help you find the best flight for your needs. On the downside, prices can change between selection and booking. We did a dummy booking, and by the time we got to the payment section, the flight price had gone up from $157 to $338!

Much like other online travel agencies, Travelocity can also charge booking fees, so keep an eye out for those in the payment section of the booking process.

Pros and Cons of Travelocity

• Price Guarantee: If you find a lower price on an identical itinerary within 24 hours, Travelocity will refund the difference in price
• Free cancellation on flights within 24 hours of booking (on most airlines)
• Travelocity sometimes charges a booking fee
• Prices can change between flight selection and payment

Bottom Line: For more information, check out our guide to booking travel with Travelocity .

10. Google Flights

Google Flights is not an OTA. Rather, it’s a metasearch engine similar to Kayak. Once you find a flight, Google Flights will link you to the airline’s direct website or an OTA to complete the purchase. It is a powerful search engine built on the ITA Matrix , which was originally developed for travel agents.

This site shows you price trends and how your travel dates could affect the cost of your ticket. Plus, it allows you to track the prices of a route , so you can jump on low prices when they pop up. These features make Google Flights a great tool to help you feel confident that the price you’re getting is a good deal.

Google Flights recently rolled out a price guarantee feature on select flights departing from the U.S. If you book a flight with the price guarantee badge and the price drops, you’ll get a refund of the difference (with a maximum of $500 per calendar year) from Google Flights via Google Pay. However, you can only receive up to 3 price guaranteed refunds at any one time.

Pros and Cons of Google Flights

• The price graph shows you the pricing trends for your route and allows you to see what days might be cheaper to fly
• Price tracking will send you an email when your flight’s price increases or decreases
• Automatic price guarantee on select flights
• Since this search engine is so powerful with lots of options, it could get complicated for a novice traveler

Hot Tip: You can earn frequent flyer miles on flights booked through an OTA, but you might not earn miles toward elite status.

11. CheapOair

CheapOair is an OTA that offers its own credit card. Before applying for the card, we recommend considering a better travel rewards credit card  for more lucrative and flexible travel rewards.

This site might not be as cheap as you would think. That’s because it can charge expensive “agency fees.” For most flights, the fees can be up to $35; however, once you read the fine print, you’ll see they can actually be as high as $200 per ticket!

In addition, CheapOair charges a fee to change or cancel any ticket, including within 24 hours, which is free on many other sites.

Pros and Cons of CheapOair

• Price Match Promise: CheapOair will refund the difference in price if you find a lower price on the same itinerary on a major OTA within 24 hours of booking
• CheapOair charges hefty booking fees in addition to fees to cancel or change your flight
• Price Match Promise is very limited; the guarantee is only good for identical flights on Expedia, Orbitz, Priceline, and Travelocity

Bottom Line: CheapOair might not be cheap after all. It advertises low base fares, but it charges booking fees, which usually result in a higher price than the airline’s website. For more information, check out our guide to CheapOair .

Hopper is an app that tries to predict the right time to buy a flight. It claims that using its app can save you up to 40% on flights. The simple interface and color-coded map show you the cheapest and most expensive times to fly to your chosen destination.

You can also set up alerts to watch the prices for your specific dates or watch a whole month if you have flexible travel plans.

Pros and Cons of Hopper

• Easy to use
• Choose to watch prices for a specific trip or choose to watch prices over a whole month
• No ability to search on a desktop
• Few filtering options

Hot Tip: There are many credit cards with travel insurance and extra protections like trip interruption and cancellation protection and baggage delay coverage . We suggest looking at Chase credit cards or Amex credit cards for great insurance coverage.

We searched for a flight from Los Angeles (LAX) to New York City (JFK) across different travel booking websites to compare pricing head-to-head. Below is the cheapest ticket each website offered.

In this search, we weren’t taking anything other than price into consideration. When you are actually booking a flight, there will most likely be more factors that go into your decision of which flight to book.

In this example, Google Flights, Hopper, and Priceline tied for the cheapest flight cost with Expedia, Hotwire, Orbitz, and Travelocity coming in just $3 more expensive. CheapOair was by far the most expensive option.

There is no one-stop shop to find the lowest prices on a flight every time. Most OTAs are in the same ballpark when it comes to price.

If you’ve got some flexibility, many of these sites can help you find the lowest-priced travel dates and destinations.

If you prefer a more traditional booking, start out with a travel search engine like Kayak or Google Flights to search all of the other sites. That will give you a good idea of the best website to use to save the most money on your next flight.

Are you a student? Don’t miss our guide to the best websites for cheap, discount student flights .

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For rates and fees of The Platinum Card ® from American Express, click here .

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the best website to use to book the cheapest flights.

There is no single website that has the cheapest flights all of the time. Most of the travel search engines and online travel agencies all have similar pricing, however you can find some really nice deals when looking at opaque (hidden) bookings or vacation packages.

What is an opaque booking?

An opaque booking hides many of the flight details, including arrival and departure times and the operating airline, until your booking is complete. Many sites including Hotwire, Orbitz, and Travelocity offer these types of bookings.

Will I earn frequent flyer miles when I book through an online travel agency?

Generally, yes, you will still be able to earn frequent flyer miles on flights booked through an online travel agency. However, miles earned to qualify for elite status may be not be awarded unless you book directly through the airline’s website.

What are the best websites to buy cheap flights to Europe?

Your best bet would be to start with a travel search engine like Kayak or Google Flights. You will be able to see prices from many different websites in one place and you can track flight prices to help determine the best time to purchase tickets. Be sure to check out our guide to the best websites to book European vacation packages if you want to bundle your flight with a hotel and/or rental car.

Is it cheaper to book directly on the airline's website?

Often, an airline will offer the lowest prices through its own website. However, you can often save money booking through an online travel agency (OTA) that has the ability to combine flights from more than 1 airline into a single itinerary.

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About Katie Seemann

Katie has been in the points and miles game since 2015 and started her own blog in 2016. She’s been freelance writing since then and her work has been featured in publications like Travel + Leisure, Forbes Advisor, and Fortune Recommends.

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The 14 Best Flight Search Sites for Booking Cheap Airfare

Contributing Editor Carl Unger believes that every trip is worth taking. He loves an extended trip to Europe as much as he enjoys exploring the towns and landscape near home. Basically, you'll find him wherever there is good food, fresh air, and plenty of stories to bring home.

Carl has been writing for SmarterTravel since 2005. His travel writing has also appeared on USA Today and the About.com Boston travel guide.

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Travel Motto: “Why do you go away? So that you can come back. So that you can see the place you came from with new eyes and extra colors. And the people there see you differently, too. Coming back to where you started is not the same as never leaving.” –Terry Pratchett

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Wondering which website you should be booking your airfare with to get the best deal? You’re not alone. There are seemingly endless options when it comes to choosing the best flight booking site these days.

In addition to the option of booking directly with your airline, there are dozens of flight booking websites, also known as online travel agencies (OTAs), to choose from. The uncomfortable truth is that no one flight search engine can guarantee the best price 100 percent of the time, but using a mix of the right resources can help ensure you’re not overpaying.

The Best Flight Booking Sites

One important thing to remember about booking sites/OTAs is that Southwest fares are not sold on them. Some other airlines have also pulled their fares from some booking sites , but most airlines do make their fares available.

Here’s why these 14 are the best flight booking sites and metasearch options out there, and the best defining feature of each. Since it’s impossible to know which site will provide the best price for your particular trip, you should always compare fares from a few sources before you book.

Best Flight Search Site for Comparing Flight Types: Travelocity

It should be noted that Expedia owns Travelocity , so this flight booking site basically gives you Expedia price results with a different color scheme and organizational preferences. Travelocity’s homepage is streamlined but doesn’t offer a flexible-dates search. On the results page, bag fees are revealed by a pop-up screen that activates when clicking each fare, which makes it a little difficult to compare fees (you will likely have to scroll a bit). Travelocity charges booking fees for some but not all flights.

Best Feature: Travelocity displays all fares for a selected flight in a convenient pop-out window, allowing you to compare fares on a given itinerary while still scrolling through options from the search results on the same screen.

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Best Flight Search Site for Comparison Shopping: BookingBuddy

Editor’s note: BookingBuddy is owned by SmarterTravel Media, SmarterTravel.com’s parent company.

Compare multiple airfare sites with one click to find the best flight deals on BookingBuddy . This metasearch site lets you easily compare prices from other sites (like Priceline) without having to do a bunch of different searches. You can choose which flight search sites you want to compare, and BookingBuddy opens up a new tab with your selected flight dates and destinations already filled in.

Looking for a flight and hotel? BookingBuddy offers a combination flight and hotel search that can save you some decent money by bundling.

Best Feature: Sign up for a price drop alert, and BookingBuddy will email you when costs drop on your route.

Best Flight Search Site for Transparency: Expedia

As previously mentioned, Expedia is nearly identical to Travelocity, but fares did vary between the two sites on some of my searches. As with Travelocity (and to be fair, a number of other OTAs), Expedia will try to up-sell you on adding a hotel to your itinerary. This can save you money, but be sure to compare prices before you book. Expedia charges variable booking fees (and they are not always the same fees that Travelocity charges). When you select your fare from the list of options, there’s an interstitial step that displays what is and isn’t covered in the fare, including seat selection, cancellations, changes, and baggage rules.

Best Feature: Like its subsidiary Travelocity, Expedia basically double-checks that you understand what sort of fare you’re choosing before you click “select” again. It’s a helpful bit of transparency in today’s cluttered airfare landscape.

Best Flight Search Site for Nonstop Flights: CheapOair

Much like Travelocity and Expedia, flight search sites CheapOair and OneTravel (discussed later in this article) are versions of the same product, owned by Fareportal Inc. Though the sites are owned by the same company, the fare results are not always identical, so it’s worth checking both. CheapOair shows some “Super Saver Fares” for which you don’t find out the airline you’ll be flying until after you book—which means you also don’t find out what baggage fees apply until after you book. However, the savings might be worth it. CheapOair charges a service fee on air travel transactions, from $0 to $35 per ticket.

Best Feature: CheapOair prioritizes nonstop prices over itineraries with stops, organized in an easy-to-read chart that’s organized by airline.

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Best Flight Search Site with Flight Reviews: Tripadvisor Flights

Tripadvisor is known for its hotel reviews, and now travelers can apply their ratings to airlines, plus search for airfare on Tripadvisor Flights . On testing this flight booking site it’s clear that Tripadvisor doesn’t always serve up the cheapest fares, but sometimes it did. It always, however, gives you the option to surface Expedia, Travelocity, and other flight booking sites’ results, so you can compare right away with one click. Tripadvisor Flights also has some helpful search options up front, like a checkbox for prioritizing nonstop flights.

Best Feature: Tripadvisor’s flight search tool is unique from others in that it offers review-based FlyScores of airlines alongside their fares, so you’re less likely to book with an obscure, poorly rated airline without realizing it.

Best Flight Booking Site for Environmentally-Conscious Flyers: Skyscanner

Skyscanner is a popular metasearch site that works with hundreds of other travel providers to find the best fares. You can specify nonstop-flights-only right from the homepage, and there’s also a handy “everywhere” option if you don’t have a particular destination in mind and want to see what’s available. Search results show the “best” option (based on a combination of price and speed) as well as the fastest and cheapest, and you can filter by airline, alliance, number of stops, and flight times. When you select a result, you’ll see a variety of places to book that particular flight. Skyscanner casts a wide net, so you’ll often see very cheap fares from booking sites you’ve never heard of; to help you figure out how trustworthy they are, Skyscanner shows user star ratings for each.

Best Feature: For flyers concerned about the environmental impact of their travel, Skyscanner has a unique “Greener flights” filter, which shows only itineraries with lower-than-average CO2 emissions based on your search. The site also highlights certain itineraries in your results as a “greener choice.”

Best Flight Booking Site for Flexible Travel: OneTravel

OneTravel has a similar interface to CheapOAir, with a convenient chart prioritizing the best nonstop flight options at the top of the results page. The search results automatically populate similar but cheaper flights on alternate dates close to the user’s original search date, which is great if there is flexibility in your plans. If you are committed to your arrival and departure dates, however, you can toggle off alternate dates in the filters section. One major drawback: OneTravel charges a steep service fee of up to $50 per ticket.

Best Feature: The search results page is subdivided into Recommended, Cheapest, Shortest, and Alternate Date tabs, making it easy to find exactly what you’re looking for at a high-level and continue to filter down from there.

Best Flight Booking Site for People on a Budget: Travelzoo

Travelzoo is quite different from the other sites listed here. Instead of booking specific itineraries, you can search broad timelines (this week, next month, this summer, etc.) for deals in your desired destination by either month or season. This makes Travelzoo a good fit for people with a budget and time frame, but no firm idea of when or even where they want to go. The downside is that if you do have specific plans in mind—for example, you need a flight to Omaha in March—Travelzoo is not likely to be helpful.

Best Feature: Travelzoo’s flexibility requirement can afford some great deals you won’t find elsewhere, like cheap business-class flights and multi-city itineraries that will make a dream trip a lot more affordable than you’d think.

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Best For Where You Don’t Care Where You Go, You Just Want a Good Price: Google Flights

Google Flights is a powerful, simple metasearch site that comes free of ads and distractions. After you enter your departure and arrival airports, the calendar pre-populates with prices so you can target dates with lower fares. Once you have your results, you can track fares on your selected dates and receive updates by email. You can also view fares over various dates using the “Price Graph,” which shows you a bar graph that makes it easy to see when the lowest fares are available.

Best Feature: Instead of putting in a certain city as a destination, you can put in a larger region such as Europe or South Africa. You’ll then see fares to various cities within that region displayed all at once on a map. This can be helpful if you want to go to Europe in April, for example, but don’t have a particular destination in mind.

Best Flight Booking Site for Filtering: Kayak

Often imitated and frequently duplicated, Kayak was a game-changer when it launched back in the mid-2000s. And it’s still one of the most powerful metasearch tools available. You can also set up fares alerts to track prices over time. The interface is noisier than Google Flights thanks to a preponderance of ads, but still easy to use. Like Google, it has a flexible search feature that lets you search for good deals to a region like Europe or even simply put in “anywhere.” Another handy feature available on many itineraries: an “Our Advice” box that lets you know whether you should buy now or wait, depending on whether Kayak thinks fares will go up or down over the next seven days.

Best Feature: Its Hacker Fares claim to piece together separate one-way tickets, potentially saving you money compared to similar itineraries, and its wide range of filters, sorting options, and predictive technologies put a lot of tools at travelers’ disposal.

Best Flight Booking Site That Included Southwest: Momondo

Like Kayak, Momondo is a metasearch site that takes you to other sites to make your purchase. One plus: Momondo surfaces results from Southwest, including flight times and other details from the carrier … but no prices. Only by clicking through to Southwest could I see the fare. Still, it’s nice to have a reminder that Southwest is an unlisted option. Another plus: Momondo searches for fares from a ton of smaller OTAs, which could lead to a deal that other metasearch tools miss.

Best Feature: The mention of Southwest is unique to Momondo.

Best Flight Booking Site for Multi-Stop Itineraries: Nomad from Kiwi.com

Kiwi.com is an OTA like many others; you book directly on the site (as you would on Expedia) rather than being linked off to a different site (as you would on Kayak or Momondo). But what sets it apart is its Nomad search engine, which lets you find cheap itineraries for multi-destination trips. You enter the starting and ending places of your journey as well as the cities where you want to stop along the way, including how many nights you want to spend in each place. Hit “find routes,” and the site will put together an itinerary that mixes and matches airlines and routes for the lowest possible price. (For example, I was quoted a route involving four flights—New York City to Rome to Moscow to Tokyo and back to New York—for a measly $1,031 round-trip.) You can filter your results to weed out routes with multiple layovers or flights that don’t include checked baggage.

Best Feature: This is by far the easiest tool I’ve used to research around-the-world and multi-stop itineraries.

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Best Flight Booking Site for Fare Alerts: Airfarewatchdog

Full disclosure, airfarewatchdog is a sister site to SmarterTravel, so we are slightly biased with this one, but promise it is worth your while. Airfarewatchdog is the best for flexible travelers who are just looking for a great deal on airfare. Search fares from a city, to a city, or you can “ choose an adventure ,” which will show you fares from your city to various hotspots depending on what you are looking for – castles, caves, coffee, you name it, airfarewatchdog will point you in the right direction. Their blog features great travel tips, and one of the best features is the fare alerts you can sign up for. If you know you want to travel somewhere, but all you want is a cheap price, sign up for an alert, and you’ll find out as soon as the price dips so you can book it right away.

Best Feature: The fare alert—it allows you to stop searching daily for that perfect price! Let airfarewatchdog do the work for you.

Best Mobile-Friendly Flight Booking Site: Hopper

Hopper is primarily an app for your phone (although it can be used as a website ) but it is worth putting on here just the same. Have you ever been scared to book a flight because it might go down, or afraid to not book it in case it goes up? One of the features of Hopper that makes it shine is its price predictor, which means you never have to worry about making the wrong booking decision. Another bonus is it shows you the price with all of the fees and taxes included, so there is no sticker shock when you finally go to book. After you search, if you aren’t ready to book, you can set up an alert to watch that trip, dates and all. 

Best Feature: Hands down the price predictor. 

Which Flight Booking Site is Best for Me?

In determining which of these sites are the best ones for you to compare prices with, it’s helpful to determine which sites meet your trip-booking needs. Do you want to clearly see bag fees up front? Do you want an easy “flexible dates” function, or are your dates firm? If your travel plans are loose, do you want to see prices for multiple destinations? Different flight booking sites have different capabilities.

Once you determine which site is worth your time depending on the trip, compare prices with a few to make sure you’re getting the best deal. And always check the airline’s own site: OTAs are good at displaying fees associated with an individual flight, but it’s trickier to compare fare options (classes like basic economy vs. economy) on that flight.

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Lastly, it’s important to remember that this list can be separated into two main types: booking sites (also called OTAs) that you book directly with as a third party, and aggregators otherwise known as metasearch sites that’ll send you to a booking site to make your transaction. The latter are better if you want to use any frequent flyer programs you might belong to and acquire points.

Editor’s note: This story was originally published in 2019. It has been updated to reflect the most current information. Sarah Schlichter and Megan Johnson  contributed to this story. Some of the links featured in this story are affiliate links, and SmarterTravel may collect a commission (at no cost to you) if you shop through them. As an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases.

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We hand-pick everything we recommend and select items through testing and reviews. Some products are sent to us free of charge with no incentive to offer a favorable review. We offer our unbiased opinions and do not accept compensation to review products. All items are in stock and prices are accurate at the time of publication. If you buy something through our links, we may earn a commission.

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• How does momondo find such cheap airfare? momondo searches across hundreds of airlines and travel sites, from major booking sites to individual company sites, to give you as many cheap airfare options as possible. When you conduct a single search on momondo, you can find and compare cheap airline tickets like you’ve done hundreds of searches at once. momondo is completely free to use - with no hidden charges or fees - and the prices you see are never affected by your searches, no matter how many you make. We believe in an open world, where traveling and getting acquainted across borders and cultures is available to us all, so we’re committed to showing you the cheapest flights in our flight finder.
• How do I find the best price on plane tickets? Choose your destination and preferred travel dates, and we’ll provide you with an overview of the cheapest, quickest, and best flights so you can compare prices and book flights with confidence. Flexible on dates? It’s even easier to find cheap flights by using our Price Calendar (found above your search results), which shows you the cheapest travel dates. This is available on all of our most popular flight routes.
• How can Mix & Match save me money? Sometimes you can save money by combining flight tickets from different suppliers, and we call that Mix & Match. This means you can book your outbound flight with one supplier, and your return flight with another. If you can save money by combining tickets from different suppliers, we’ll automatically include this option in your flight results and label it Mix & Match. You’ll have to complete two separate booking flows after you select this deal on our site, but it’s worth it if you can save money over a traditional round-trip with one supplier. It’s an advanced way of getting the cheapest flights even if they’re offered by different suppliers.
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The 6 Best Flight Search Sites for Finding Cheap Flights

See recent posts by Tracy Stewart

Flight-hunting for your next big trip? There are tons of booking sites, or online travel agencies (OTAs) competing for your attention, but not one of them is perfect. For starters, you won’t find the full scope of available flights in the search results of any of these sites. That’s because some airlines forbid them from listing their fares, most famously Southwest , though there are others.

And while many of these OTAs power their searches using the same fare data provided by ITA Software (now owned by Google), you can still find substantial discrepancies in results from one to the other. Another curveball? These sites rarely, if ever, take into account special promo-code deals that are sometimes offered exclusively for purchase directly from the airline’s site.

So while there’s no one-size-fits-all booking site, each has its pros and cons. You may find the set of features offered by one site meets your needs better than another. Here’s a rundown of the advantages (and disadvantages) of some of our fave booking sites.

The Best Cheap Airfare Search Sites for 2021

Part of the Kayak network, Danish-based metasearch site Momondo is a great option for international flight searches, thanks to its inclusion of lesser-known regional budget airlines combined with other carriers. Another major distinction, domestic searches include Southwest flights whereas other sites do not. You still have to click through to Southwest.com to see the price of those flights, but just to have it listed as an option is more than what other search sites offer.

Advantages: For a broader view of flight options, Momondo lists unusual routings the other sites tend to miss, including Southwest. Results can be filtered by flights offering wifi, red-eyes, and roundtrip “Mix & Match” itineraries consisting of one-ways on different airlines.

Disadvantages: The interface can feel a bit messy at times, with pop-ups and secondary searches that launch by default on sites like JustFly.com .

Related: The Two Cheapest Days of the Week to Fly

Skyscanner set the standard for metasearch sites by including route combinations from lesser-known carriers and a wide range of filters such as price, flight duration, connections, and, most recently, CO2 emissions . Similar to Google Flights, Skyscanner also allows for broad regions, such as Europe, which is useful when you’re open to going wherever is the cheapest.

Advantages: Aside from its incredibly thorough mix of flight options and filters, Skyscanner wins major points for being the first search site to list flights by CO2 emissions.

Disadvantages: Some users may feel uneasy over the fact that Skyscanner may direct you to book on a site you’ve never heard of, and can sometimes seem shady. Users assign these sites ratings based on price accuracy, refund policy, customer service, ease of booking, and “miscellaneous.” That’s somewhat reassuring, but then why bother listing a site with so-so ratings?

Related: What is Travel Hacking—and Should You Be Doing It?

CheapOair  

If you’ve been missing Priceline’s long gone Name-Your-Own-Price feature, OTA CheapOair’s Super Saver fares are a close substitution. There’s no bidding involved, but fares are discounted and the identity of the airline is only revealed after you purchase. Keep in mind that CheapOair tacks on a booking fee of $35.

Advantages: Aside from deals for CheapOair members and discounted Flight+Hotel bundles, CheapOAir has a pretty robust filter system for search results, including an option to "show alternate dates" to make sure you're traveling on the most optimal days.

Disadvantages: Blindly booking without knowing the airline in advance also means you won’t know what to expect in ancillary fees for baggage and seat selection. For families or anyone booking a trip with multiple passengers, those fees can really add up.

The granddaddy of flight metasearch sites, Kayak’s flexible search remains one of the better tools for finding a deal, even in today’s crowded field. Its explore map provides a quick glance at current deals to destinations around the globe, something that Google and Skyscanner also have but that Kayak offered first.

Advantages: Flight results can be trimmed down with the usual filter categories (price, duration, airline, alliance), but Kayak also allows users to filter by aircraft type.

Disadvantages: Kayak’s fares aren’t always up-to-date, and it’s not unusual to click on a great fare only to find that it expired hours ago.

Related: The 8 Cheapest Places to Fly This Fall

If you’re at the beginning stages of planning your next big vacation, with just a vague idea of where you’d like to travel and flexibility with travel dates, Travelzoo may be more your speed. Here, trips are searched broadly by weekend, season, or month. Results may not always be the cheapest available option but will turn up some great values, including discounted business class tickets.

Advantages: Travelzoo is excellent for churning out flight deals for trips you might not have known you wanted to take.

Disadvantages: Its loosey-goosey approach may not work for those who are searching for deals over a specific set of dates.

Google Flights

The Cadillac of flight metasearch, Google Flights offers a ton of easy-to-use features to narrow down the best available flight. Aside from basic filters like price, connections, and departure times, you can weed out flights based on carry-on bag allowances, alliances, and connecting airports. Google Flights will also show you if it’s cheaper to book segments of a trip separately or together if you so choose. View fares in calendar view, by grid or graph, and track fares by setting up alerts.

Advantages: It’s intuitive and easy to use. Unlike some search sites that bombard users with ads and pop-ups, Google Flights is clean and uncluttered, showing only what you need to find your flight. Indecisive travelers can map out the lowest available fares from your city to destinations across the globe, based on your trip parameters. You can also search for fares to general regions, like Europe, to see what city might be the best deal.

Disadvantages: Some may be overwhelmed by all the potential ways to view what is essentially the same information. Google Flights isn’t always as thorough in its results as you might expect it to be, often listing flight info without prices for some airlines, though that is usually due to issues with the airline.

Stay on top of breaking sales, fare drops, and more! Follow us on Twitter at @Airfarewatchdog . And make sure to sign up for FREE airfare alerts to be notified when prices drop.

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The 10 Best (and Worst) Airfare Search Sites for 2024

Frommer’s regularly pits the best airfare search engines, aggregators, and booking sites against each other in a battle royale to see which can find the lowest price on more than two dozen identical searches for flights. 

This year’s results bring new discoveries. We are excited to announce that none of our new top three—the best of the best—is a household name. We are equally excited to discover that if you’re specifically looking for a last-minute deal on airfare, a fourth website, one that’s not even in our top three, is the best choice. And two former airfare search sites fell out of our Top 10 entirely: This year, both Booking.com and FlightNetwork failed to take off. As for the rest of our Top 10, each one has its pluses and minuses, which we’re about to reveal in our reviews below.

On this year’s list, two sites that previously languished in the bottom half of the reviews have upped their games and zoomed into the top ranks—and one former low performer improved so much that it nabbed the top slot.

We have winnowed down a wide field to the 10 best airfare sites for 2024. Here they are.

We tested 15 sites on 32 itineraries, trying both last-minute flights (leaving in a week) and APEX fares (booked three months out). We covered major gateways (NYC to LAX, LAX to Hong Kong, NYC to Paris) and secondary ones (Philly to Tampa, Chicago to Rome, Miami to Rio). We threw in a curve ball (Dallas to Dubai) and included a flight with no North American legs (London to Barcelona) to see how well each handled Europe‘s wilderness of low-cost carriers.

We also ignored low fares that would be miserable to fly due to excessively drawn-out layovers, too many stops, or flying long detours just to change planes. Basically, we rejected any itinerary that increased total travel time by more than half. Airlines may think those are viable plans, but we don’t.

We then used a rigorous, weighted scoring system that rewarded three points to any airfare search site that found the best fares, two points for second-best, and so on. We also penalized fares with negative points if the price proved to be higher than the average result from all competitors. Fares within 1% of one another were considered equal.

• An aggregator is only as good as the OTAs it canvasses. There are booking engines that sell tickets directly (Hotwire, Kiwi, CheapOAir, etc.). And then there are aggregators, which are sites that do not book tickets but instead search dozens of other booking engines, airfare sites, and OTAs (online travel agencies) and compile the results in one place; travelers then click through to their selection to make the actual purchase on the third-party site that’s actually selling it.

Some of the booking sites that aggregators show you are safer than others. All quality aggregators will remove unreliable ticket sellers from their searches, but problems can slip through. As you should do when you are referred to any unfamiliar company, always do a quick Better Business Bureau check for an unfamiliar airfare seller and search for complaints and red flags. 

Also, some OTAs are prone to dangling lead prices a few bucks below what they will actually offer once you click through, and some misleadingly categorize “direct” flights—which do actually stop, but don't require you to change planes— as “nonstop.” Because prices can change from moment to moment, even the most honorable aggregator may lead you to a site where you can’t find the airfare you were originally quoted. When that happened to us frequently in our review tests, we let you know.

Aggregator Google may be the Titan of online search, but it fumbles when it comes to airfares. 

Google does have some things going for it. It is unbelievably fast, refreshing results even as you key in destinations or change filters. It displays average prices on a popup calendar when you’re choosing dates so you can see at a glance the cheapest days to fly. It also lets you peruse a price grid and price graph on the results page. 

Google’s flight search features a fabulous “Explore” feature that allows you to select major city pairs and find the lowest fare for your dates (plus price trends for the month surrounding it), or just see at a glance how much it roughly costs to fly from your designated airport to dozens of destinations. It is also one of only three sites, including our #1, to feature a filter to include fees for checked and cabin bags in the prices. 

So why is the mighty Google at the back of the pack?

Its price results were all over the place. It found the best fare a grand total of one time, flying from Miami to Rio—but four of our top five sites matched it. Then it tanked on rooting out the absolutely lowest fares for two major routes: NYC to Paris and LA to Hong Kong. Its results for pricier direct flights on those itineraries were just average. 

Google frequently found the exact same flight as many other sites did, but at prices just a little bit higher—often just 5% to 15%, but in some cases bafflingly higher, like the last-minute Dallas-Dubai jaunt on Emirates; Google wanted $673 more than our price champion for that flight, and around $250 more than several other sites found.

After quietly doing away with its Hot Rates (deeply discounted opaque airfares), Hotwire fell out of our ranking after 2017. Now it’s back, but with a huge caveat: Never use Hotwire for last-minute fare. 

Hotwire performed, by far, the worst of any site we tested at last-minute prices, chalking up the highest airfare a whopping six times. The two better-than-average rates it did find were balanced out by a pair of worse-than-average ones on other itineraries. 

Hotwire made up some ground by being flatly average when it came to booking farther in advance. It never found the cheapest overall fare, but it often nabbed lower or even the lowest rates on direct flights.

Beyond that, it failed pretty hard, and we think we know why. Hotwire was the only site that missed big chances to bring no-frills carriers into the mix. On New York–to-Paris, it found a decent $745 fare on Scandinavian, albeit with a stopover—but everyone else found a direct Flybee flight for even less ($666–$687). The best Hotwire could muster for a direct flight: $987 on Norse.

More egregiously, because Hotwire only searches one airport at a time by default, it missed lots of cheaper no-frills flights that were available at nearby alternate airports. Because of that blind spot, Hotwire insisted on a British Airways fare for our London-Barcelona hop that actually cost around four times more than booking a combo of no-frills RyanAir, easyJet, and Vueling from other airports in London—a tactic every other site knew enough to include in results. Hotwire pulled the same face-plant on last-minute fares on the same route; the Air France tickets it offered us cost twice as much as the low-cost carriers in that scenario.

Another mark against Hotwire is its poor set of filters. Along with other problems, it offered no way to indicate a maximum total flight time or layover duration you’d be willing to deal with. That’s pretty much a standard sidebar slider everywhere else. We did like the way its showcases, above the results, how much it would cost to fly on three days to either side of your chosen date.

By the way: If you’re wondering why Expedia (and its corporate siblings, Orbitz and Travelocity) is not on this list, it is because those results are all right here in Hotwire. Expedia now just uses the Hotwire engine for its airfare functions, so if you search Expedia now, you’ve searched Hotwire.

This year,  Hopper , the travel app with an intuitive and colorful interface, tumbled five places from #3. 

When it came to finding cheap airfares, Hopper was a mixed bag. It did well enough on advance-purchase APEX fares, scoring slightly better prices than average about a third of the time. But that decent performance was counterbalanced by a dismal performance in the last-minute category. Hopper got whatever is the opposite of a silver medal, second only to Hotwire in putting up the worst prices the most often. Oddly, the only place where it fared better than average was on our curveball Dallas-to-Dubai itinerary. 

In terms of utility, Hopper still gives its users advice about the best dates to book based on price trends, but that feature used to offer far, far more insight on every flight—it once had bar graphs and historical prices, baggage fees and seat pitches, and the cost of various amenities. Those are all gone, although on the final booking page, Hopper will at least link you to the airline’s own page on baggage regulations and costs (except when that link is broken). 

Some features remain. The calendar for selecting dates is color coded to show the cheapest travel days for two months, so you can easily spot where a bit of flexibility might save you money. In addition to a paltry half-dozen sort-by filters (price, flight duration, number of stops, etc.), Hopper can limit the results to its self-defined categories of Basic (cheapest), Standard (economy fares, but with at least free carry-ons and seat selection), Enhanced (more legroom, priority boarding, free snacks, etc.), plus Premium and Luxury for folks who probably don't need this roundup of the best places to book airfares online. One nice touch: Hopper includes a novel option to limit results to flights with no change fee.

Speaking of fees, Hopper sure does like to pressure you to pay a lot of them for its own add-on services, like freezing a fare for up to 21 days for a sliding scale cost, plus flight protection and cancel-for-any-reason insurances—each of which Hopper, annoyingly, makes you decline on two screens in a row before you can proceed. (On that note, for security’s sake, we always recommend you buy travel insurance from a third party, never from the provider who sells you the trip, in case that provider becomes unreachable.)

We’re not sure what happened to the Czech booking site Kiwi.com to make it tumble from #2 to #7 in less than two years, but the numbers don’t lie. Most of its fares were just a little above or below average, though it did find the cheapest last-minute flights from Miami to Rio and Chicago to Rome. 

What tanked its score was twofold. It performed poorly on advance-purchase direct flights (out of eight itineraries, it scored under average three times and worst of all another three). Kiwi did come up with the cheapest overall fares on NYC to Paris and L.A. to Hong Hong with connecting flights—but then so did most of the sites that outranked it.

Kiwi does have some features to recommend it. It caters to travelers who can be flexible. The default departure date is "anytime," allowing you to see which days are cheapest, and once you do choose a date, pop-up calendars show indicative prices for every day over two months. The results page has a fare grid for three days to either side of your chosen dates, and a trends bar graph showing what prices are likely for a dozen days out (and you can scroll even earlier or later). It’ll even throw in train and bus options, if available, which on our list is unique to Kiwi. It also has the second-best set of filters in the game, rivaled only by our #1. 

But there’s a hitch. We must point out that Kiwi does catch some bad reviews for lackluster customer service when something goes wrong. Frommer’s has received complaints about Kiwi from readers, and few rivals would be jealous of its status with the Better Business Bureau, which fields complaints about its Miami office. Bearing that in mind, some travelers may feel more comfortable using Kiwi to find ideal itineraries but then buy them elsewhere. 

The last time we ran our tests, Priceline lost the precarious grip it had kept on the #10 spot for years and fell off the list entirely. During its time in the wilderness, Priceline evidently cleaned up some of its worst practices. It has vastly improved its filters, provided daily price comparisons on the popup date-picker calendars, and no longer turns up its nose at low-cost carriers. That, plus its solid, if not breathtaking, price performance, has placed Priceline back in good graces and firmly in the middle of the pack.

Overall, last-minute fares were Priceline’s biggest weakness, underperforming even our #7 contender, Kiwi, on that score. It was the advance fares that lifted Priceline to #6. It even pulled off a few nice moves. Priceline alone realized you could shave $40 off a CHI-ROM flight in exchange for a short layover in Istanbul. It was also one of only two tested sites to figure out you could save 35% on a last-minute trip from NYC to L.A. as long as you were willing to endure a brief layover. 

Priceline of course also still offers its original, quirky travel hack: The “Express Deals.” These are opaque fares in which you get to pick your airports and travel dates, but not learn precise flight times, airlines, or stopovers until you pay. Before purchasing, you’ll only know whether it’s a morning, mid-day, or evening takeoff and that there will be “0–1” plane changes. If you are willing to put up with that degree of uncertainty, you can save up to 40%, though the discount is typically more around the 10% mark.

Aggregator Tripadvisor  holds its position in fifth place, proving that while it may no longer be just a platform to vent about travel mishaps, but its airfare results are holding steady. 

Tripadvisor offers the clever cost-saving option to include nearby airports—you never know when Newark-to-Fort Lauderdale will cost half a LaGuardia-to-Miami ticket—and its great set of filters includes one that lets you limit the booking sites it checks to only the names you trust.

What’s holding it back at #5—aside from being annoyingly slow—is that whenever it found the cheapest tickets, or even a better-than-average airfare, so did our top three sites. And those higher-ranked sites pulled off this feat even more often. Tripadvisor also turned in a resoundingly meh performance on last-minute airfares, with overwhelmingly average results nearly across the board. 

The highest ranked OTA on our list, CheapOAir reigns supreme when it comes to last-minute airfares. How good are the airfares it sells? A few rivals managed to find the best price one or two times, but CheapOAir did so an impressive six times. 

However, alongside those six wins, CheapOAir posted three prices that were worse than average (but not the worst). You could say it’s all or nothing with these folks—even more so when it came to advance-purchase fares, where CheapoAir’s performance was all over the place. Put it this way: If we ignored its stellar performance in the last-minute category and scored things based only on buying tickets a few months out, CheapOAir would rank 7th, not 4th. 

A few other quibbles: CheapOAir won the booby prize for Most Annoying Popups—pestering us to "Speak to a travel expert" or pick "Air-hotel package or flights only?" to a vexing degree. It was also the slowest of our bunch, and sometimes pretty glitchy. 

On the plus side, the popup date-picker calendars automatically populate with airfare prices for every day, so you can see at a glance which day is cheapest to fly. CheapOAir also had a handy cheat sheet chart at the top of results showing the costs, both non-stop and cheapest, for the best half-dozen airlines. The filters were also pretty good, including options to show alternate dates and nearby airports (both can be great cost-saving techniques).

Always give CheapOAir a look if you are planning to fly in the immediate future—but then also run the numbers at our top three, just in case.

This decade-old upstart quickly outgrew its travel hacker roots to find a comfortable roost on our ranking among the top three—even when we left out the problematic "Hidden city" fares that were once its calling card. 

Hidden city fares—which you can easily exclude by unticking the box next to the word "SKIPLAGGING"—are tedious to explain but boil down to this: They can sometimes cost less, but you don't get to check any luggage. Most crucially, hidden city fares are against airline rules and can result in unpleasant, pricey consequences or even lawsuits if you're caught. But Skiplagged gives you the option to exclude this controversial type of airfare, which we did for our tests. 

Ironically, the site that named itself for a technique that games multi-leg journeys turned out to be strong on direct flights. Our top three sites were pretty much neck-and-neck when it came to pricing (all excellent at the long game, average on last-minute airfares), so it comes down to their other features.

Skiplagged's delightfully simple graphic interface lets you compare, at a glance, the lengths of trips, including layover durations. When you enter a departure airport or city, the arrival is defaulted to "Anywhere;" if you leave it that way, you get a page of photos with prices for a bunch of tempting getaways all across North America (sadly, though, nowhere else).

Skiplagged’s popup calendars show how much the flight costs on each day over two months, so you can easily see how tinkering with the departure or return can save you money. (On the two sites that placed higher in our review ranking, this feature only indicates price ranges, not precise fares).

We do have a few criticisms. Some of Skiplagged’s seemingly low fares from questionable OTAs were actually higher than the competition once you click over and discover service fees and the like. Skiplagged also lacks robust filters, doesn't disclose baggage fees, and rounds down all the prices—that last complaint is minor since we're only talking about a few cents, but just feels sneaky.

Skyscanner remains one of the best performers on price and essentially tied with #3, Skiplagged, in securing the lowest fares on advance purchase tickets. Skyscanner was consistently average on last-minute bookings—but we give it a shout-out for it nailing the cheapest price by far on a quick getaway from Philly to Tampa, even if it was on Spirit. Something else it shares with Skiplagged: mediocre filters.

This time, Skyscanner earned the edge for a few reasons. You can choose "Explore everywhere" as your destination to get a nice grid of destinations and the cheapest cost to get there. Unlike the similar feature at Skiplagged, which is constrained to North America, if you keep scrolling down on Skyscanner, you will get destinations on other continents as well.

This was also one of the first aggregators to include low-cost airlines, and it continues to innovate by including a star rating for all third-party booking sites (and how many users rated it), which helps with vetting unfamiliar OTAs.

Skyscanner offers the option to include nearby airports and to search for destinations in an entire country rather than just a city. While the initial popup calendars for travel dates do not show, as do some others, the precise prices to fly on alternate days, they do indicate each day’s relative cost category via a color code. Then, once you get to the results page, the tiny "Show whole month" link at the top will provide a page with two months’ worth of estimated prices.

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How to find cheap flights, what is the best day to buy a plane ticket.

This just in! Airfares offered on Thursdays tend to be the cheapest, according to flight demand on Travelocity in 2021. Tuesday and Wednesday prices are also good, but you may want to prepare your budget if booking during the weekend, as data shows that is when prices are generally at their highest.

What are the cheapest days to fly?

Frequent travelers may already know this, but earlier in the week can be the cheapest time to fly. In 2021, flights departing on a Monday were generally the cheapest of the week, whereas you may pay a premium for weekend flights when demand is usually high. On average, tickets were most expensive for Saturday departures, so if you need to fly out on a weekend, you might look for deals ahead of time.

How far in advance can you book a flight?

Trying to figure out how early you should book your flight? It’s possible to start comparing international airfares on Travelocity up to 12 months in advance. However, it does depend on the carrier as not all airlines release their prices that far out. According to our 2021 flight demand trends, last minute planners can still bag a bargain with some of the cheapest fares appearing 0-2 weeks prior to their travel dates.

*According to flight demand on Travelocity.com from January to December 2021. Savings are subject to change based on departure location, date and destination.

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Top Routes to Los Angeles

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Top Routes to Miami

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• Chicago (ORD) to Miami (MIA)
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Top Routes to New York

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• Philadelphia (PHL) to Tampa (TPA)
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Top Routes to Washington

• Los Angeles (LAX) to Washington (DCA)
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Top Routes to Atlanta

• Los Angeles (LAX) to Atlanta (ATL)
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Tips on booking cheap flights.

Looking for the best time to buy airline tickets to get a cheap flight to everywhere? We’ve got you covered anytime, anywhere. Here’s how to find the best deal for flight booking no matter where you want to go in the world.

Which day of the week is the best day to buy cheap airline tickets?

For both U.S. domestic and international travel, Sundays can be cheaper for airline ticket purchases. Fridays tend to be the most expensive day to book a flight. Booking on the right day of the week could save you up to 6% on your airfare, according to historical data*.

When is the best time to buy airline tickets?

Based on 2020 And 2021 global flight data for Economy tickets, prices usually start to increase 56 days before departure for domestic flights. When traveling internationally, prices usually start to increase 21 days before departure*. Keep in mind that this isn’t a hard-and-fast rule; keeping an eye on prices is a good idea when trying to find the best airfare deals. Compare fares across different airlines, and set up a price alert for your preferred route.

Which are the cheapest days to fly?

Analysis of domestic and international airfare prices shows that flying out on Fridays can be cheaper. Many travelers start their trips on Sundays, so your chances of a lower price are better when departing early in the week instead. Starting your trip on a Friday could be almost 11% cheaper than air travel on Sundays, so book flights online wisely*!

Which is the cheapest month to fly?

The cheapest month to fly can vary depending on where you’re going, so finding the best rates largely comes down to avoiding peak travel times for your destination. If you’re looking for cheap international flights , the most expensive month tends to be February, while the cheapest is November with cheap flights in November offering potential savings of up to 34.6% relative to February. Cheap domestic flights work a bit differently, with March being the most expensive and August being the least expensive with cheap flights in August offering savings of up to 35%*.

How can I find the cheapest flights on Expedia?

Compare cheap airline ticket prices at a glance from a large inventory of carriers on Expedia. You can get cheap flights by staying flexible with travel dates, carriers, and nonstop/layover flights to get the best price. Insider tip: Become a member (it’s free!) to earn rewards back on every booking. We make your travel stress-free and source incredible airfare deals so you can sit back, relax, and start your vacation or business trip.

How can I save money on flights?

Mixing and matching airline tickets and fare types could help save money on airfare to your destination. Easily compare prices for carriers, arrival and departure dates, airplane cabin class, and more when you book with Expedia. Booking your plane ticket on a Sunday, and departing on Friday, could possibly save you money* based on historical data. You can also filter for flights based on your budget, such as looking for cheap flights under $200 specifically.

How can I get cheap last-minute flight deals?

The historical data analysis of flight pricing patterns shows that you can still find amazing airfare deals 3 weeks prior to departure* when traveling domestically. International last-minute flights offer great deals 2 weeks prior to departure if you’re flying premium, but economy travelers may want to strive for no less than 4 weeks out*. Try to stay flexible with travel dates, airports, and nonstop/layover flights to find the cheapest flights on Expedia. Whether you’re planning a quick business trip or a spontaneous holiday with friends, you’ll have your choice of last-minute flights, roundtrip, or multicity flights on Expedia. You’ll find everything you need for your travels all in one place — and all at the right price.

How do I book with Expedia?

Booking your flight with Expedia is easy, as all you have to do is implement your travel dates, departure destination, like flights from Atlanta or flights from Hartsfield-Jackson , and arrival destination into the search. Then, all the available flights for those dates and destinations will appear. You can use search filters to narrow down the results as well based on a variety of factors like the airline, number of stops, departure time, and policies like seat choice and refundable bookings. Additionally, travelers may alter their search for round-trip flights, one-way flights, and multicity flights.

What should I look out for when booking flights?

Several factors go into any flight booking, and you’ll need to keep an eye out for them all to ensure that you get the travel time, luggage policy, airline, and class you want. Consider which airport is closest to your ultimate destination (travelers to Los Angeles may prefer flights to LAX over flights to PSP , and make sure that the flight will accommodate all the luggage you plan on bringing. Additionally, consider the different flight classes including economy flights for functionality and premium flights if you want to enjoy a more relaxing experience.

Where’s the cheapest place to travel?

The cheapest place to travel can be in the same country, like Chicago. Flights to Chicago are fairly affordable no matter where you’re coming from in the continental United States. Flights to Las Vegas tend to be pretty affordable as well. While the Vegas airport isn’t a hub for any major airline, it does have plenty of competition to keep prices relatively low.

Where can I fly for cheap?

Staying within a strict budget still allows you to find plenty of cheap flights, even to destinations like Puerto Rico. In fact, flights to Puerto Rico don’t even require U.S. citizens to have a passport. Flights to Alberta and other destinations in Canada can be fairly affordable as well.

Is it cheaper to buy flights last minute?

Flight tickets can be cheaper at the last minute depending on how late you’re actually booking, where you’re going, and the kind of flight you opt for. For domestic flights with Economy tickets, prices usually start to increase 3 weeks before departure, and 4 weeks for international flights, according to historical data*.

Are fully refundable flights available?

Yes, several fully refundable flights are available and will be labeled as such right on your search results page in green text. You may also filter for fully refundable flights specifically to eliminate all flights from your results that don’t qualify. Just make sure to check the specific policy for each flight before booking.

Why should I book my flight with Expedia?

Booking with Expedia makes finding a flight easy, but that’s just the beginning of everything you can take advantage of. We also offer hotels, car rentals, and even activities that you can purchase with package deals available for travelers planning more than one aspect of their trip at a time. Plus, Expedia offers stunning cheap flight deals that can help you save with ease. As a One Key member, you will earn OneKeyCashTM for every eligible booking that you can use to save on future bookings. Plus, OneKeyCash can be earned on top of airline miles.

*Data specialists from both ARC and Expedia Group analyzed ARC’s global flight data to distil actionable information to help people save money on travel. While it’s impossible to guarantee when to find the lowest prices, after examining the variables, we were able to observe trends. Best day of the week to book and best day of the week to depart is based on average round-trip ticket prices for January through August for 2021, sourced from ARC’s global airline sales database. Best month to depart recommendation is based on average round-trip ticket prices for January through December for 2020, sourced from ARC's global airline sales database. Best time to book recommendation is based on average round-trip ticket prices for January through August for 2021 & average round-trip ticket prices for January through December for 2020, sourced from ARC's global airline sales database. OneKeyCash is not redeemable for cash and can only be used on Expedia, Hotels.com and Vrbo.

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Find deals on flights from the United States from $29

This is the cheapest one-way flight price found by a kayak user in the last 72 hours by searching for a flight from the united states to anywhere departing on 6/4. fares are subject to change and may not be available on all flights or dates of travel. click the price to replicate the search for this deal., search hundreds of travel sites at once for cheap international flights from the united states.

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Flights from the United States - Travel Insights & Trends

Get data-powered insights and trends into flights from the united states to help you find the cheapest flights, the best time to fly and much more., which are the most popular places to fly to from the united states, based on kayak flight searches, the most popular place to fly from united states is new york (25% of total searches). the next most popular destinations are las vegas harry reid intl (13%) and seattle/tacoma intl (11%)., what are the most popular international flights out of the united states, there are many international destinations you can fly to from the united states. the most popular international destinations among kayak users are san juan, rome and paris ., what are the most popular countries to fly to from the united states, based on kayak flight searches, the most countries to fly to from the united states is united kingdom (8% of total searches). the next most popular destinations are canada (8%) and mexico (7%)., which cities can i fly to direct from the united states, there are loads of places you can fly direct to from the united states. the most popular destinations for direct flights among kayak users are chicago , new york , los angeles , washington, d.c. and miami . on average, the cheapest of these destinations on kayak over the last 2 weeks for a return flight was miami at $180, while the most expensive was washington, d.c. , at $219., which international cities can i fly to direct from the united states, there are many international destinations you can fly to non-stop from the united states. the most popular international destinations from kayak users are mexico city , milan , paris , manila and guadalajara . on average, the cheapest of these destinations on kayak over the last 2 weeks for a return flight was guadalajara at $235, while the most expensive was manila , at $808., what is the longest direct flight from the united states, the longest direct flight you can take from the united states is to beijing, with a duration of 20h 20m. the next longest is singapore at 19h 10m, followed by a flight to chengdu at 18h 05m., good to know, faqs for booking united states to worldwide flights, where can i fly to for cheap from the united states.

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How does KAYAK find such low prices on flights from the United States?

KAYAK is a travel search engine. That means we look across the web to find the best prices we can find for our users. With over 2 billion flight queries processed yearly, we are able to display a variety of prices and options on flights from the United States.

How does KAYAK's flight Price Forecast tool help me choose the right time to buy my flight ticket from the United States?

KAYAK’s flight Price Forecast tool uses historical data to determine whether the price for a flight from the United States is likely to change within 7 days, so travelers know whether to wait or book now.

What is the Hacker Fare option on flights from the United States?

Hacker Fares allow you to combine one-way tickets in order to save you money over a traditional round-trip ticket. You could then fly to your destination with an airline and back to the United States with another airline.

What is KAYAK's "flexible dates" feature and why should I care when looking for a flight from the United States?

Sometimes travel dates aren't set in stone. If your preferred travel dates have some wiggle room, flexible dates will show you all the options when flying from the United States up to 3 days before/after your preferred dates. You can then pick the flights that suit you best.

Top 5 airlines flying to Anywhere

I've flown many many times on Northwest and then Delta. The crew on this flight were absolutely the best I've had the pleasure of being looked after by.

Flew first class so everything was great. But maybe because the flights were red eye, no meals were served, just chips. I flew Alaska Air 1st class at 9PM (2 hour flight) and they served beef short rib sliders!

Had to change aircraft due to a faulty door. Surprisingly it only caused about an hour and a half of delay. Delta handled this situation as well as can be expected.

Awful. Flight was continuously getting delayed and gates kept changing without any reason. Flight was delayed for more then 3 hours

Paid premium for Delta only to be on safe but tired old 767 with ancient cabin in mediocre condition. Poor wifi and horrible inflight entertainment. Hardly a premium experience. Should have flown SW and had fun flight crew and no pretense

Our flight to Zurich was delayed by almost 3 hours, so we missed our next flight. There was no indication it would be delayed this much. We were told the gate had changed and then it apparently took over 2 hours to load the "catering" on the plane. We were not compensated in any way for the trouble.

Rated entertainment as Mediocre as there were major problems with the Infotainment system that took probably a half hour for them to fix.

Your crew could maybe answer the call bell at least one of the times I pressed it. I pressed it first time with 2.5 hours left in our flight bc my partner was hungry and wanted a sandwich. We finally got the sandwich with 40 mins left in the flight.

Half the bathrooms assigned to economy were out of action

Delta crushed it. Flight attendant in first was attentive and just never stopped. Honestly one of the best domestic flights I’ve been on.

Well....let's start from the point that I had to stay in airport for 12 hours instead of 2 that was scheduled. Poor company and even worst customer service. Never again....

The flight and boarding were easy peasy. I was traveling with my 4-year-old, so a smooth boarding experience was especially appreciated. My only piece of feedback is really about where our gate was in O'Hare. They've shoved four gates into a tiny corner of the B terminal and there isn't early enough room or seating for everyone. Not United's problem, but did dent the overall experience.

We liked the fully reclinable seats. Had center seats, so it was difficult to talk to spouse. Crew was great

Aisle chair was good and liked the foot bar preventing you from putting your foot in the isle, The breakfast on this international flight to Zurich was horrible (Europeans, specially, used to good food) may make this a dealbreaker for booking with United Airlines again. I agreed with my Spanish fellow passenger.

Dinner was okay but the breakfast was not eatable on the flight San Francisco to Zurich.

There was no screens on board AND the WiFi didn’t work. My seat was broken and couldn’t recline so I couldn’t even sleep. The flight attendants didn’t offer anything to make it more comfortable. It was such an old cramped plane, when the person in front of me reclined I couldn’t even open my tray table. All the United ads talk about guaranteeing everyone gets a screen!

The Wi-Fi was unavailable on this flight for some reason.

The flight was delayed almost 2 hours. Bad customer service etc. I will never fly Luthansa. Ever!!!

On time take off…US cabins look tired and need of refresh!

Fine. Though no food or entertainment so the survey needs to be updated with those options.

28 hour delay at Fort Worth/Dallas airport, part due to weather which was unavoidable, but various other reasons - no pilot, no fa, mechanical problem, plane too small, too big, crew out of flying time, seat configuration problems.... endless and hourly updates with a different excuse. Finally told us about 3.00 am, that the flight was delayed to hours later.

Experience was bad. 3.5 hour delay for a 2.5 hour trip. There was no r Transparency about the reason for the delay and it was done 30 mins at a time.

Original flight delayed several times and finally canceled at 2:30 in the morning. Staff at the gate was not very helpful in resolving problems or communicating why there were delays. I spent 34 hours at the airport before I could leave, they couldn't book me on another early flight even after canceling my original flight. Next flight available after my original flight was canceled was 22 hours later. I will never fly American Airlines again.

very very tight seats unfriendly crew who do not seem to care about the comfort of their passengers and do not know how to smile poor ground staff support at LHR and PHX

The boarding process and flight were great. However, I waited about 40 minutes for my luggage. It did not come up on the designated belt. Instead, everyone’s bags were on a cart. Not sure what the issue was, but we were not informed until another passenger went looking for her bags and found them.

There were delays on both ends. It made it less than excellent. This plane was great though

AA1537 the AC was not working properly. It was very hot and uncomfortable.

So uncomfortable to sit in the tiny space on a long, international. Food was rough. Please, less white flour and processed food.

Worst experience flying American Airlines. I fly with them often, so I was super disappointed in the service I received at gate 30 in LGA on May 24, mid-day. The flight was delayed twice. I was patiently waiting in the American Airlines lounge when I received the notice on my app that the plane was boarding 45 minutes before its newly re-scheduled take off of 4 pm (from the orginal 1:45 pm then 3:00 pm). It took me 5 min to travel from the lounge to the gate and when I arrived there at 3:20 flight gate attendant told me the flight had closed and that they announced for passengers multiple times. I showed them the notification on my app and they were really rude and unempathetic. The person who rescheduled my flight at customer service wasn't any happier but was at least helpful in getting me on the next flight.

Flight was 1/2 hour delayed leaving Phoenix. Otherwise it was an average flight. Flight crew on this trip was very nice.

The plane was not on time for boarding or departure or arrivals.

EVERYTHING WAS WONDERFUL HOSPITALITY THE HELP.THE SEATING FRIENDLY ALWAYS HAVE A GOOD RIDE NOT ONE BAD EXPERIENCE WITH THEM

This was the smoothest flight I have had in awhile. I was also offered an exit row seat for a great upgrade cost and was able to sleep almost thr whole flight due to comfort and a smooth flight. We left on time and arrived on time.

No food not even water offered unless you buy it and no usb in the seat but other than that everything was good

Because our flight from marsh Harbor to Fort Lauderdale was over three hours delayed it caused us to miss our flight in Fort Lauderdale. Because we missed that flight, it cost us nearly $100 apiece for four different travelers which totaled nearly $400. We are seeking a reimbursement for the flight that we missed in Fort Lauderdale Florida.

Flight expected to leave at 6:40 pm ended leaving at 8:00 am the following day. I slept in a cold airport. Never again Spirit for me…

Flight was cancelled just 6 days before. No more flights that day, and the following date was sold out. Had to obtain a refund and buy more expensive flights on another airline.

The flight was on time and nice as always for me with spirit but the cabin crew were not good. They left the lights on on a red eye for the entire flight.

This was the return leg of my journey with Spirit Airlines. Despite its reputation, I found no issues as it got me from point A to B safely and without delay, especially with no mechanical delays, which is fantastic in my book! The staff, from ground crew to cabin crew, were all pleasant and hassle-free. The flight was smooth from takeoff to landing. I have absolutely no complaints about this no-frills airline!

I got a one-way, last-minute nonstop flight from PDX to BWI for only $125. Yes, I got nicked $79 more for a checked suitcase and $89 more for the BIG SEAT option, but it was worth it, even with $4.50 for coffee and $10 for a snack (the latter no different than any other airline). The grand total was still less flying on any other airline.

I am very disappointed with Frontier Airlines. They cancelled our flight because they couldn't find a crew member, and then didn't get us to our connecting flight. We had to cancel our whole vacation. We were promised flight and hotel vouchers, but they never sent them.

9hrs delay and didn’t provided anything until after flight landed $75 voucher for fiuture travel no meals or anything.

It was ridiculously hard to check in for the flight, and Frontier charged us a LOT of money to have a carry on suitcase, and then told everyone we could not carry on bags and had to check them through at the gate, and didn't refund the extra money we paid to have the suitcase as carry on.

I had a terrible experience with Frontier. I arrived before the 60 minute cut off and was told that Frontier has a two hour window for bags. I was then told the next available flight wasn’t until the end of the day (I had booked a 6am flight). I took a look around and saw other people being told that they could not board their flights or that they had to pay additional fees. I opted to rebook on American Airlines. There’s absolutely no straightforward way to contact Frontier, so this ticket was a complete waste of money. Oh - and the kicker is that the lady lied about the two hour cut off.

Frontier won’t help you at the airport without paying $25. Carry on was $75. Then you get on the plain and every beverage or snack is also a charge. Seats are hard and real packed in. I would never fly them again.

Worst experience I have seen. The flight was cancelled without any reason.

My experience with frontier staff at the Denver airport was absolutely horrible. The manager on duty was even worst if was the worst experience I have ever had, I have never been treated so poorly as a customer in my life! The staff was extremely rude, eye rolls and attitude and then refusal to help me at all. I wish I could never fly frontier again that’s how horrible it was!

The Frontier app wasn’t working. So I could not pay for a carry on the week prior to flying. They charged me 99$ at the gate to carry on a duffle bag.

Good for the price. My only complaint is that the pilot should keep the air flowing while passengers are waiting to getting out of airplane.

Plane could have been more on time. More leg room .

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Best Online Travel Agencies

Booking.com is our top choice for making your trip arrangements

Ligaya Malones is an editor, blogger, and freelance writer specializing in food and travel. Ligaya's work has appeared in publications including Lonely Planet and BRIDES.

We independently evaluate all recommended products and services. If you click on links we provide, we may receive compensation. Learn more .

Planning a trip can be easier through an online travel agency than if you handle each aspect of the planning separately. You can book hotels, air travel, rental cars, and more through a single site, and booking everything together sometimes results in discounts. By inputting a destination, a range of dates, and other preferences, you will see a list of options for each aspect of travel.

The best online travel agencies offer options from the largest number of airlines, hotels, car rental agencies, and more. Look for sites that offer discounts for combining reservations for different aspects of your trip. For example, the best sites will have lower rates if you book both plane tickets and a hotel through their services. The best sites also provide reviews from customers who actually have booked through the service. These are our top picks.

• Best Overall: Booking.com
• Best Budget: Skyscanner
• Best Price Predictor: Hopper
• Most Innovative: Kiwi.com
• Best for Eco-Conscious: Kind Traveler
• Best for Social Impact: I Like Local
• Best for Design-Forward Homestays: Plum Guide
• Our Top Picks
• Booking.com

Kind Traveler

I Like Local

• See More (4)

Final Verdict

Frequently asked questions, methodology, best overall : booking.com.

 Booking.com

This industry leader offers one of the most comprehensive trip planning platforms on the Internet.

Lots of options to choose from

Interface is easy to use

Numerous filters to customize your search

Tricky to tell whether changes/cancellations can be made with Booking.com or the vendor directly

Booking.com was founded in 1996 and has grown into an industry leader that stands out for being one of the most comprehensive trip planning platforms out there. From one website, you can compare and book accommodations, flights (including one-way and multi-city flights), sightseeing activities, and even airport taxis. The website lists more than 28 million accommodation options, from hotels, hostels, and B&Bs to vacation homes and luxury resorts—you can browse more choices per destination on Booking.com than other online travel agencies. The website also performs well on cost and typically returns lower-than-average prices for flights and hotels. 

Booking.com's interface is also easy to use. On the home page, search for a hotel by entering your chosen destination and dates. Then, use the extensive list of filters—such as price range and distance from the city center—to narrow the results down and find the best fit. You can also search for a specific hotel, or seek inspiration by clicking through options grouped by destination or property type or by topic such as the country’s best Michelin-starred hotel restaurants or the top cities for vegan travelers. The flights, car rental, and other tabs are just as intuitive. 

Best Budget : Skyscanner

 Skyscanner

You can compare prices across airlines, hotels, and car rentals.

Simple interface

Option to toggle searches between specific dates or by monthly calendars

Search Everywhere button is great for spontaneous planners

Extra clicks are required to make a final purchase

Must read fine print for changes/cancellations—may need to deal directly with the vendor

Ads on the sidebar can be distracting

Find deals on airfare, hotels, and car rentals with an aggregator site like Skyscanner , which uses a metasearch engine to compare prices from all online travel agencies and the airline, hotel, or car rental company in question. Run searches with fixed dates, opt to compare airfare prices month to month, or click “Cheapest Month.” Searches also include options for nearby airports or non-stop flights only. With hotel searches, you can choose to select only from properties with free cancellation, a cleanliness rating of 4.5/5 or higher, or 3- or 4-starred hotels only. Car rental searches include an option to select “return car to different location.”

Once you’ve found the best rate, click on the link to be redirected to the third-party site to make your booking. Feeling spontaneous? The Search Everywhere button on the homepage offers a list of the cheapest flight deals for destinations both locally and across the world—just plug in your departure airport first.

Best Price Predictor : Hopper

The company claims a 95 percent accuracy rate at predicting when flights and hotel rates will be cheapest.

Color-coded system makes it easy to determine cheapest days to buy

App is easy to use

Option to track flights and receive alerts when the best time to buy arises

Some have mentioned the app functions better as a research tool than a booking tool

Unclear whether Hopper will price match if you find a cheaper flight elsewhere

Hopper is a travel app available on iOS and Android that aims to help travelers save on airfare by usng historical data and their own algorithm to predict when flights will be cheapest. Just type in where and when you’d like to fly and Hopper will present you with a color-coded pricing calendar indicating how much tickets are likely to cost. (Green is the least expensive, then yellow, orange, and red for most expensive.) Hopper will also recommend you either buy now or wait, or you can choose to watch a trip and receive notifications on the best time to buy. In addition, the app has expanded to offer hotel and car rental price predictions, too.

Some newer features since the app’s inception in 2009 include an option to freeze a price for a limited time—for an extra fee—as well as exclusive app-only discounts. Hopper is free to download, and you can choose to book directly through the app, though some users mentioned they use Hopper as more of a research tool before booking directly with the airline or hotel. The company claims a 95 percent accuracy rate at predicting flight rates up to a year ahead.

Most Innovative : Kiwi.com

This metasearch engine scours the web to piece together the ideal itinerary using planes, trains, buses, and more.

Creative itineraries get you where you need to go, especially if you’ve got a multi-stop trip

Kiwi Guarantee offers rebooking or cancellation protections

Nomad option appeals to travelers with a lot of flexibility

Creative itineraries mean you may not fly out of the same airport you flew into

Kiwi Guarantee has an additional fee

Charges all-in-one fee for booking flights, trains, buses (though you can always purchase a la carte)

Travelers planning multi-city destinations and seeking a bargain, as well as those looking to take planes, trains, and automobiles to get there, might consider Kiwi . Kiwi is a metasearch engine that scours and pieces together itineraries from various airlines (even if they don’t have a codeshare agreement), considers multiple airports (even if your arrival airport is different from departure), and offers booking options, whether you’re looking at very specific dates or more general ones (up to 60 nights).

Some will find the ability to make multiple bookings for a particular trip more convenient than going at it manually several different times, though note that you must opt into the Kiwi Guarantee program to access rebooking and refund protections should your reservation change or be canceled. Kiwi’s Nomad option allows you to plug in a bunch of destinations you’d like to visit and the length of your intended stay, and the website will churn out the most affordable itineraries for review.

Best for Eco-Conscious : Kind Traveler

A give-and-get business model means booking accommodations with exclusive perks, a donation to environmental organizations, and more.

All participating hotels include a local give-back component

Exclusive savings and perks

Participating hotels are located in some of the most beautiful places in the world

Inventory is much smaller compared to other booking platforms

Some of the amenities mentioned are based on availability only

In 2022, Kind Traveler (an online trave agency focused on hotel bookings) announced an increase in environmentally and socially conscious hotels, charity donations, voluntourism opportunities, and additional perks like waived resort fees or a welcome amenity.

Unlock exclusive hotel rates and perks from participating Kind Traveler hotels with a minimum $10/night minimum donation to a local charity. For example, stay at the Six Senses Laamu in the Maldives and receive up to $33 off the nightly rate and perks such as a food and beverage credit and an Earth Lab or Alchemy Bar workshop when you make a donation to Manta Trust. The organization funds coastal research to protect the island nation’s large yet fragile population of reef mantas.

Select from more than 140 participating hotels from the Hawaiian Islands to Bozeman, Montana, and the Maldives. Charities include wildlife, human rights, arts, education, and environmental preservation organizations.

Best for Social Impact : I Like Local

Choose from a host of travel experiences with the peace of mind that 100 percent of the cost goes directly to local partners.

Social impact mission woven into organization’s business model

Immersive experiences led by local guides

Range of experiences offered

May not be best fit for those seeking upscale, luxury experiences and stays

Can’t sort experiences by a list of countries (though an interactive map is available)

No experiences outside of Africa and Asia

For an online travel agency with a booking platform designed to route dollars spent directly to the communities travelers intend to visit, consider I Like Local . Visit the website to browse a host of travel experiences in countries including Indonesia, Kenya, and Cambodia. Experiences include homestays and farmstays as well as wellness and culturally oriented experiences—from cooking and cycling tours to weaving classes.

To search for an experience, select from drop-down items like travel dates and experience categories, or view a global map and click on a country to view experiences that way.

The platform got its start in 2014 and has grown to 4,000 local hosts across nearly 20 countries. As a social impact organization, 100 percent of each booking fee goes to local hosts. To date, 16,000 travelers have booked with I Like Local.

Best for Design-Forward Homestays : Plum Guide

Browse and book seriously vetted, design-forward vacation homes.

Highly curated inventory of vacation rentals across the world

Design-forward

Thorough vetting process

Does not publish guest reviews

Other platforms have homes available across more destinations

When it comes to booking a vacation home, serviced apartment, or condo, travelers are spoiled for choice. Plum Guide is an online travel agency that specializes in accommodations—though not just any home makes its directory. The company claims that each potential home listed on its site must jump through 150 hoops to be included, from internet speed and mattress and pillow quality to the showers’ water pressure and the home’s proximity to dining, shopping, and attractions.

Search by a featured collection on the website such as “ pet-friendly homes ” or “one-of-a-kind homes in Palm Springs.” Scroll to the bottom of its homepage to view its top destinations, as well as a list of all destinations where Plum Guide homes are available, including Barbados, Mexico, Portugal, Switzerland, the U.S., and Turkey. Note: From the top right-hand corner of the site, use the dropdown menu to select currency of choice.

As long as you know what you value most out of your travel experience—such as affordability, social impact, or luxe accommodations—there’s an online travel agency to help plan your next trip. Be sure to read the fine print, as some agencies are third-party websites and not direct vendors. If you're not sure where to start, Booking.com is your best bet for a smooth user experience and hard-to-beat offers on flights, hotels, and other travel arrangements.

What Is the Biggest Travel Agency?

Our choice for best overall, Booking.com, is known as an industry leader with listings for all major hotels, airlines, car rental companies, and more. It boasts more choices for accommodations per destination than any other site, and we found its interface to be user-friendly.

Are Online Travel Agencies Worth It?

This depends on your needs and priorities. The best online travel agencies certainly can save time by booking everything all at once. However, if you're someone who is good at haggling and enjoys the details of planning a trip, you might be able to find better deals by reaching out to hotels or other destinations and speaking to someone personally.

Is It Cheaper to Book Online Than With a Travel Agent?

Not always. A travel agent you know and trust should have the experience and connections to find deals that can match or surpass what you'll find online. Additionally, if something goes wrong, travel agents provide you with an actual person you can use as an advocate to correct the problem . But if you don't have access to a good travel agent, online sites still provide plenty of ways to streamline planning and save money .

We considered dozens of online travel agencies and narrowed down the options based on user experience, volume and quality of inventory, unique offerings and specials, and customer reviews. We also assessed travel companies’ environmentally and socially conscious policies.

Catherine Falls Commercial / Getty Images

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Alternative Airlines: A Smart Way to Pay for Travel?

Many or all of the products featured here are from our partners who compensate us. This influences which products we write about and where and how the product appears on a page. However, this does not influence our evaluations. Our opinions are our own. Here is a list of our partners and here's how we make money .

If you didn’t think there were enough flight search and booking sites available on the internet, there’s yet another option: Alternative Airlines. And while it may sound more like an actual airline that simply operates a little differently, the company is nothing of the sort.

Instead, it’s an online flight aggregator and booking platform but with a handful of notable differences from typical travel booking sites — mainly when it comes to paying for flights.

But is the site a smart way to book and pay? We’ll take a look in this Alternative Airlines review.

What is Alternative Airlines?

Alternative Airlines is a flight search and booking platform similar to other online travel agents (OTAs) like Kayak and Expedia . It offers a place to search for and book global flights on over 600 airlines.

But what sets the website apart are the options when it comes to deciding how to pay for those bookings. Unlike most booking sites that offer traditional payment options like credit cards, airline miles or perhaps a buy now, pay later payment plan option such as Afterpay , Alternative Airlines offers many.

The site claims there are at least 40 payment options, including:

Credit cards.

Debit cards.

Numerous buy now, pay later options, including Afterpay, Affirm , Clearpay and Klarna .

E-wallets like Apple Pay , Cash App and Google Pay.

Dozens of cryptocurrencies.

Mobile money and bank transfers.

However, not all payment options are available in all countries.

You can filter payment options by country before searching and booking on the site so you know your options in advance.

» Learn more: The best airline credit cards right now

How Alternative Airlines works

The platform will likely look similar to other booking sites you’ve used before, like Google Flights . You’ll enter preferred destinations and travel dates, search, then see available choices plus the ability to filter for options like low-emission flights, specific airlines and more.

Once you select your preferred flights, you’ll enter traveler details and select whether you want to add protections like flight cancellation or lost baggage coverage. You can also opt for other add-ons like automatic check-in and weather updates, which cost extra.

All that’s left is to choose your payment option from the drop-down lists of possibilities, then check out.

You will only be able to book flights on the site. Unlike other OTAs, Alternative Airlines doesn't allow you to search for and book hotels, cruises, rental cars or travel packages or earn points like with One Key on Expedia or Vrbo or score discounts like by bundling on Priceline . Alternative Airlines is just for flights and doesn't offer points earning programs or special savings.

» Learn more: What does travel insurance cover?

Why use Alternative Airlines?

The main draw when considering whether to book with Alternative Airlines instead of another OTA or directly with an airline comes down to payment options.

If you plan to pay for your flight in full with a credit card ( often the best option for earning points and miles ), then you’re probably better off streamlining the process by booking directly with the airline.

However, if that airline or OTA doesn’t offer the buy now, pay later option you want, or you need to pay with a less conventional currency like crypto or PayPal , Alternative Airlines could be a viable option.

But in multiple searches for identical flights from Dallas-Fort Worth to Washington-Dulles and San Francisco to New York-John F. Kennedy, booking on Expedia and airline websites was significantly cheaper than on Alternative Airlines.

Even with no add-ons or payment surcharges, the same flight from Dallas-Fort Worth to Washington-Dulles booked on Alternative Airlines was $443, while both Expedia and American Airlines cost $357, a significant difference. An Alaska Airlines flight from San Francisco to New York-JFK was $526 on Alternative Airlines and $456 on Expedia.

Part of that difference is due to surcharges, including fees for using cryptocurrency and even credit cards (fees vary based on your chosen payment method), but not all of it.

Alternative Airlines is best reserved for booking when you’re more concerned with payment options than the actual bottom line. Otherwise, you’ll likely end up paying more for travel.

» Learn more: Should you use buy now, pay later services for travel?

What happens if something goes wrong?

If you need help with booking or are having issues with travel arrangements, Alternative Airlines has a dedicated support staff that’s available seven days a week. Staffers can help you contact the airline if there’s an issue, send booking confirmations and make requested changes on your behalf.

Alternative Airlines lists a customer service phone number and WhatsApp number on its contact page , plus a help request form.

You can also manage your booking online yourself and make changes or cancellations as necessary.

That said, the site is still technically an intermediary, and — as we’ve mentioned before — passengers who book directly with airlines often have an easier time making changes, more flexible rebooking options and sometimes fewer fees.

» Learn more: What to know about flight delay compensation

Is Alternative Airlines legit?

Yes, Alternative Airlines is a legitimate OTA designed to offer the most possible options for paying for air travel. With a 4.7-star rating on Trustpilot (Expedia has 1.2 stars, and Priceline has 3), reviews have so far been positive.

It’s a viable way to pay for flights using less conventional payment methods. But it does tend to be more expensive than booking with other OTAs or directly with airlines, so it’s not a money-saving way to pay unless you have no other option.

How to maximize your rewards

You want a travel credit card that prioritizes what’s important to you. Here are some of the best travel credit cards of 2024 :

Flexibility, point transfers and a large bonus: Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card

No annual fee: Bank of America® Travel Rewards credit card

Flat-rate travel rewards: Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card

Bonus travel rewards and high-end perks: Chase Sapphire Reserve®

Luxury perks: The Platinum Card® from American Express

Business travelers: Ink Business Preferred® Credit Card

on Chase's website

1x-5x 5x on travel purchased through Chase Travel℠, 3x on dining, select streaming services and online groceries, 2x on all other travel purchases, 1x on all other purchases.

75,000 Earn 75,000 bonus points after you spend $4,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening. That's over $900 when you redeem through Chase Travel℠.

1.5%-5% Enjoy 5% cash back on travel purchased through Chase Travel, 3% cash back on drugstore purchases and dining at restaurants, including takeout and eligible delivery service, and unlimited 1.5% cash back on all other purchases.

Up to $300 Earn an additional 1.5% cash back on everything you buy (on up to $20,000 spent in the first year) - worth up to $300 cash back!

on Capital One's website

2x-5x Earn unlimited 2X miles on every purchase, every day. Earn 5X miles on hotels and rental cars booked through Capital One Travel, where you'll get Capital One's best prices on thousands of trip options.

75,000 Enjoy a one-time bonus of 75,000 miles once you spend $4,000 on purchases within 3 months from account opening, equal to $750 in travel.

10 best last-minute travel websites

W ith spring in the air and summer just on the horizon, many will be starting the search for suitably affordable last-minute trips abroad. 

But organising a holiday at short notice is often easier said than done, whether it’s a spontaneous couples’ getaway or last-minute break with friends and family. The excitement of researching a destination can quickly dissipate once the slog of trawling travel agent, airline and tour operator websites has begun. Comparing flights and accommodation costs on different days for different destinations can really feel like hard work, the antithesis of the fun holiday you’re hoping to book.

The good news is that, whether you want to jump across the Channel to see the Eiffel Tower or head long-haul to the beaches of Cancun, there are hundreds of online options to help you find the best deals for booking transport, places to stay and other extras.

Instead of spending hours on dozens of different websites, check out this list we’ve compiled of some of the best in the travel marketplace. You’ll save time on the research and money on the holiday too – what’s not to like?

Holiday Pirates 

This travel deals site manually searches for the best holiday offers daily, finding a range of big discounts and emailing them to subscribers. At the moment you can book an eight-night tour of Turkey, staying in four and five-star hotels, for under £560pp. Other destinations with deals range from as close as Amsterdam to as far away as Mexico.

holidaypirates.com

Jack’s Flight Club

Sign up – for free – to the club and get emailed the cheapest flights from the UK and Ireland including discounts, hidden offers and error fares – think UK to Brazil for £290. Many are last-minute deals, but remember, with prices like this it’s fastest finger first.

jacksflightclub.co.uk

Google Flights

As you’d expect from the algorithm masterminds, this site compares and tracks fares to find you the best deal. But it also has features for the last-minute traveller, such as an option to search for flights in any number of cities for a specific date – so you can see if it’s cheaper to go jet off to Athens or Oslo this weekend.

google.co.uk/flights

Hotel Tonight

This handy website offers last-minute deals if you need a place to stay tonight, tomorrow or within the next seven days. While some deals – especially in the US – are not so good, it can deliver deep discounts in Europe and the UK while also saving you time browsing the best deals.

hoteltonight.com

Kayak 

On the “Explore” section of Kayak you can enter your trip length, travel time and dates and the site will come up with a range of options for you to choose from. The easy-to-use map feature is a great way to compare locations and prices for a last minute trip.

kayak.co.uk/explore

BA Holidays

No, it’s not a discount specialist, but BA Holidays – the package wing of British Airways – can offer deep discounts for last-minute trips, pairing unsold flight inventory with empty hotel rooms. In fact, the deals can be so good that a city break with hotel included can work out cheaper than the flights alone, and a week’s car hire in Europe can be close to free.

baholidays.com

With more than 30 million subscribers worldwide, Travelzoo features a host of deals ranging from trips abroad to activities such as spa visits, theatre ticket deals and cruises. A sign-up is required to see full details of deals, but it seems worth it for trips such as four nights and return flights to Ibiza for £149pp.

travelzoo.com

Secret Escapes

You’ll find discounts of up to 70 per cent at Secret Escapes, which follows a similar model to Voyage Privé , offering flash sales to registered members. It’s a great place to scout high-end discount holidays and the customer service of the site has been praised as excellent.

secretescapes.com

Best at Travel

This company’s central London call centre means someone is always on hand to help you out. It’s a “normal” tour operator but has a last-minute deals section on the website, which can offer good discounts on upmarket breaks. Deals at the time of writing included seven nights’ all-inclusive in Crete from £811pp including flights, departing on 15 April.

bestattravel.co.uk

Travel Republic

With about two million customers using the site to book holidays, Travel Republic is bound to have some good deals, and there’s a vast number to choose from, since it shifts flights, tickets for attractions and traditional package holidays. For its top destinations, such as a week self-catering in Corfu, you could find holidays for as little as £218pp . The site also features a lowest-price guarantee, should you spot a better offer for the same holiday elsewhere.

travelrepublic.co.uk

Perhaps the best known site on this list, Skyscanner currently claims to have over 100 million users per month. The site provides you the cheapest, fastest and ‘best’ option for flights. Available in over 30 languages and offering a quick comparison for flights, hotels and car hire, the chances are that you’ve used it before and will use it again.

skyscanner.net

The Independent is the world’s most free-thinking news brand, providing global news, commentary and analysis for the independently-minded. We have grown a huge, global readership of independently minded individuals, who value our trusted voice and commitment to positive change. Our mission, making change happen, has never been as important as it is today.

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Nonstop flight route between Düsseldorf, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany and Bratsk, Irkutsk Oblast, Russia:

Departure airport:, arrival airport:, distance from dus to btk:, share this route:.

• About this route
• DUS Airport Information
• BTK Airport Information
• Facts about DUS
• Facts about BTK
• Map of Nearest Airports to DUS
• List of Nearest Airports to DUS
• Map of Furthest Airports from DUS
• List of Furthest Airports from DUS
• Map of Nearest Airports to BTK
• List of Nearest Airports to BTK
• Map of Furthest Airports from BTK
• List of Furthest Airports from BTK

About this route:

A direct, nonstop flight between Düsseldorf Airport (DUS), Düsseldorf, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany and Bratsk Airport (BTK), Bratsk, Irkutsk Oblast, Russia would travel a Great Circle distance of 3,571 miles (or 5,747 kilometers).

A Great Circle is the shortest distance between 2 points on a sphere. Because most world maps are flat (but the Earth is round), the route of the shortest distance between 2 points on the Earth will often appear curved when viewed on a flat map, especially for long distances. If you were to simply draw a straight line on a flat map and measure a very long distance, it would likely be much further than if you were to lay a string between those two points on a globe. Because of the large distance between Düsseldorf Airport and Bratsk Airport, the route shown on this map most likely appears curved because of this reason.

Try it at home! Get a globe and tightly lay a string between Düsseldorf Airport and Bratsk Airport. You'll see that it will travel the same route of the red line on this map!

Departure Airport Information:

Arrival airport information:, facts about düsseldorf airport (dus):.

• Because of Düsseldorf Airport's relatively low elevation of 147 feet, planes can take off or land at Düsseldorf Airport at a lower air speed than at airports located at a higher elevation. This is because the air density is higher closer to sea level than it would otherwise be at higher elevations.
• The Düsseldorf Airport fire which has been the worst structural airport fire worldwide yet was caused by welding work on an elevated road in front of Terminal A above its arrivals area and insufficient structural fire protection.
• Düsseldorf Airport (DUS) has 2 runways.
• The closest airport to Düsseldorf Airport (DUS) is Düsseldorf Mönchengladbach Airport (MGL), which is located only 12 miles (19 kilometers) WSW of DUS.
• Terminal A was opened in 1977 and has 16 gates used by Lufthansa and Lufthansa Regional, its airline partners and Star Alliance members.
• The furthest airport from Düsseldorf Airport (DUS) is Chatham Islands (CHT), which is located 11,899 miles (19,149 kilometers) away in Waitangi, Chatham Islands, New Zealand.
• At the end of the war the airport reopened for civil use in 1948.
• The first stage in the "Airport 2000+" programme commenced in 1999 with the laying of a foundation stone for an underground parking garage under the new terminal.
• A fully automatic, suspended monorail called SkyTrain connects the long distance station to the parking areas and the passenger terminals and also serves as an inter-terminal connection.
• Düsseldorf Airport handled 20,830,000 passengers last year.
• In addition to being known as "Düsseldorf Airport", another name for DUS is "Flughafen Düsseldorf".
• Düsseldorf Airport is able to handle the Airbus A380.

Map of Nearest Airports to Düsseldorf Airport:

List of nearest airports to düsseldorf airport:, map of furthest airports from düsseldorf airport:, list of furthest airports from düsseldorf airport:, map of nearest airports to bratsk airport:, list of nearest airports to bratsk airport:, map of furthest airports from bratsk airport:, list of furthest airports from bratsk airport:.

These are the 5 best premium airlines in the world, according to travel experts

• AirlineRatings.com named Qatar Airways as the world's best premium airline for 2024.
• The ranking evaluates factors like safety, fleet age, customer reviews, and innovation.
• Here are the top five premium airlines worldwide, from Asia to New Zealand.

Flight passengers looking for an upscale experience in the air book their travels with premium airlines .

In May, AirlineRatings.com ranked the top premium airlines around the world in 2024. The website that rates air travel products and safety judged airlines on both criteria, as well as customer reviews, fleet age, and innovation.

Five of the website's editors, who combined have more than 100 years of experience in the travel industry, decided the winners.

The ranking also includes categories for specific features, such as the best economy and business classes and the best long-haul travel airline in each region.

Read on to find out which airlines topped the list.

5. Emirates

The Dubai-based airline Emirates ranks No. 5 on the list and also won the website's awards for best premium economy and in-flight entertainment.

As Business Insider previously reported, Emirates launched its first premium economy cabins in 2021, with upscale features such as reclining seats, leg rests, and footrests.

4. Air New Zealand

In addition to ranking fourth, Air New Zealand was awarded best economy class and was the top pick for long-haul travel in Australia and the Pacific.

Since 2011, the airline has had lie-flat bed seats in economy . BI's reporter Taylor Rains previously booked a seat — known as a " Skycouch " — for a 17-hour flight and found that the added comfort made the long flight go by quickly.

BI's reporter Monica Humphries flew with Air New Zealand in business class . She was impressed by spacious seats with footrests, three-course meals, and Champagne service before takeoff.

3. Cathay Pacific Airways

Cathay Pacific Airways also received the website's excellence in long-haul travel award for South-East Asia.

BI previously reported that Cathay Pacific Airways was included in Skytrax's roundup of 10 five-star-rated airlines.

2. Korean Air

No. 2 on the list, Korean Air, won the excellence in long-haul travel title for North Asia.

Rains reviewed her experience on a 12-hour flight in Korea Air's business class and said the cabin looked like a private jet with private, boxed-in quarters, and her seat felt more like a hotel room with a lie-flat bed, an amenity kit, and storage bins for her belongings.

1. Qatar Airways

In addition to being the world's No. 1 premium airline, Qatar Airways won the best business class award for the fifth year in a row and received the excellence in long-haul travel award for the Middle East.

AirlineRatings.com editor in chief Geoffrey Thomas said Qatar Airways was the No. 1 pick for many of the criteria, according to the company's website. In passenger reviews, Thomas noted the luxury airline scored far "ahead of all airlines, and its consistency and high standard of service delivery came through in the feedback."

BI previously reported that Qatar Airways has impressive business-class suites , lavish complimentary amenities, gourmet food, and luxurious turn-down service. 

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Bratsk Airport code (BTK)

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Bratsk Airport is an airport in Irkutsk Oblast, Russia located 8 kilometres north of Bratsk. It is a mixed use airfield, providing 32 parking spaces for medium-sized airliners, as well as a large number of branched fighter revetments. Bratsk airport serves as a diversion airport on Polar route 2.

Airport Information

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Ilim Group Presents its New KLB Mill to Industry Players

Presentation of the largest kraftliner production site in Russia took place at the 27th International Exhibition of the Packaging Industry RosUpack

The presentation of the Big Ust-Ilimsk Project, involving the construction of Russia’s one-of-a-kind pulp and board (KLB) mill in the Irkutsk Oblast, was one of the key events at RosUpack 2023. When speaking at the plenary session on corrugated board packaging market development, Alexey Chenyaev, Ilim’s Senior Vice President, Sales, Supply Chain Management and Packaging, focused on the advanced manufacturing and environmental solutions implemented at the new KLB Mill and prospects for sales market expansion it will secure.

After KLB Mill ramp-up (600,000 tons of kraftliner per year), the total annual output of Ilim Group will amount to 4.3 million tons. The Company will be one of the world’s largest producers of unbleached packaging materials and will strengthen its leadership in the Chinese market of wood-free corrugated materials with a share of approximately 50 to 60%.

The Big Ust-Ilimsk project was met by exhibitors with great interest. This year the event was attended by more than 740 companies from 19 countries. Ilim’s booth with an area of 140 m2 was one of the largest one at the site and was operated by about 50 experts from Sales and Corrugated Box Business Management Departments. The booth was attended by over 60 key accounts and more than 120 representatives of various companies, including such major ones as Heinz, MARS and KDV-Group.

Reference information:

Ilim Group is the leader of the Russian pulp and paper industry and one of the industry leaders globally. Ilim Group has three pulp and paper mills in the Arkhangelsk (Koryazhma) and Irkutsk (Bratsk and Ust-Ilimsk) Oblasts, two modern corrugated box plants in the Leningrad and Moscow Oblasts (Kommunar and Dmitrov, respectively), and Sibgiprobum engineering and design institute (Irkutsk).

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Angara village , an open-air museum in some distance from Bratsk featuring Russian houses, the church and utensils of XVII—XX centuries as well as Evenk chums .

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