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Q: I love your site... it e-mails me deals form my favorite airports and destination each day, but my dad told me about Kayak.com, and it's almost always had better deals than the ones you post. I was able to get tickets on Northwest from CMH to HNL for $478+Tax/fee ($538 total) RT this morning. I've been tracking this since August of last year on your site, and just two weeks on Kayak. I'm not sure what they do different, but I thought I'd give you a heads up so you can figure it out and improve your site. Again I love your site. Thanks Ryan

A: Ryan, glad you love us....or do you? :) We did see that Columbus, OH to Honolulu fare, but since it's only valid for travel through Mar 4 with a 14-day advance purchase and is about $540 RT including tax, I guess we didn't think it was all that stellar. Truthfully, it's not a bad fare, but we've seen that route lower. When we first started Airfarewatchdog.com, we made a commitment to only list fares that were at or near their historical lows, unless there were other things about the fare that made it special, such validity over 330 days of travel, no advance purchase, etc. So, for example, we have seen fares to Honolulu from the West Coast for long travel periods at $200 RT plus tax, and from everywhere on the East Coast the the Midwest from $300 RT plus tax.

Probably those days are never coming back, and we should rethink what a good fare is these days. It's really a judgement call, and we prefer to not alert people to fares that they'll discover later could have been purchased for less. Had that fare only had a one day advance purchase, for example, as many fares right now to Cancun do, we probably would have alerted people to it. Or had it been good for more days of the week than Tue/Wed. So you see our dilemma. Anyway, thanks for writing and glad you love (like? :) our site!

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Well, that's why you should check around. I see fares for less than that on travelocity in February ($500 with tax). If your dates are flexible, that's always a help. I also suggest checking the airline's own site. Sometimes it's cheaper believe it or not.

BTW, I don't know what Kayak's affiliation is with FareCompare, but they have identical looking searches. And on that note, I find most sites have the same results and the same prices. On occasion, sites like Vayama will have something cheaper, but it's usually because it's a consolidator fare and it won't even show you the connections or the carrier until after you book. You can save a lot of money that way, however I don't trust a computer not to give me a 45 minute layover in an airport like CDG. />:D

by tracker on Monday, January 12, 2009

Love your website. So happy I found this site. Very helpful. Keep up the good work. Thank you.

by grace on Monday, January 12, 2009

As I read what I thought was a post from an obviously astute traveler, I was thinking, "wow, that's a pretty tough question that they are posting here - not a 'puff' type question.
I'm sure that Ryan would agree that your answer was very intelligent and provided more insight to your thinking about the fares you post.
Thank you very much. I'm glad I found you.

by cigartainer on Monday, January 12, 2009

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