Conveniently, Orbitz lets you look into alternative airports within 25, 50, or 100 miles of your destination. We recently found a $187 round-trip from New York to Miami on US Airways, via Charlotte; a nonstop on Delta to Fort Lauderdale was only $135. The site also contacts you by cell phone, fax, or PDA with last-minute updates—say, if your flight is late.
Travelocity has a few tricks up its sleeve: it lets you hold itineraries for 24 hours, skip a few steps by using an "express buy" option, and exclude up to three airlines from a search—such as the one that consistently loses your luggage. Both Expedia and Travelocity allow you to choose your seat from an easy-to-read diagram (your selection is requested for you, but not guaranteed). Orbitz asks only, "Window or aisle?"
You're going way off the map.
Fares and itineraries for international bookings tend to vary more widely among the Big Three than they do on domestic flights: there are a greater number of airlines to choose from and fewer special fares. Again, it's worth shopping all three. But we like the fact that Travelocity was able to book us to such far-flung cities as Calcutta and Lagos, Nigeria. Orbitz didn't recognize Calcutta and found a more expensive flight for Lagos; Expedia found a Calcutta fare $600 higher than Travelocity's, and almost sent us to Lagos de Moreno, Mexico.
You want one-stop shopping and you're not choosy about where you stay.
Expedia's Book Together and Save feature lets you arrange hotels, ground transportation, and tickets for everything from theme parks to walking tours before you even select your flight. It's convenient, but the quality of hotels on offer can be inconsistent and you can't search by name. A request for an itinerary to Jamaica, for example, returned a list of 55 properties, from the mass-market Hedonism II to the more exclusive Jake's.
Priceline.com, the auction site, recently began pushing packages to 1,300 destinations in North America and Europe. Unlike its airfare-only model, you can choose your hotel before you bid. The site promises rates as much as 20 percent below Expedia's, but so far the choices seem limited. Priceline had only 15 properties available in Los Angeles during a recent test run, none of exceptional quality (Expedia, by contrast, had almost 500). And while Expedia had rooms available at the Hôtel de Crillon and the Prince de Galles in Paris, Priceline had rien.
You've got your airline tickets, now you need a room.
If you'd rather book hotels separately, don't set your heart on rock-bottom prices—or an easy ride. Discount hotel sites are increasingly popular, which is helping to hold rates down. But the big chains are becoming savvier about managing their prices, developing airline-style fare structures. That means an independent site will often have rates and inventory different from those at a hotel's call center or even on its own site—and any of these could have the lowest price. A recent search for a room at the Bellagio in Las Vegas left us dizzy: we found a rate of $379 at Hotels.com, while Bellagio.com told us nothing was available. We got a room for $229 by calling the hotel directly.
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