Apropos of Nothing...

[SOteric]

What are your recommendations for online travel sites? My boss recommends Expedia, a good friend says Orbitz. Anyone (besides the Shat) have a differing preference, - general advice, cautions, amusing anecdotes?

Thanks in advance for your humourous, completely irrelevant, totally tongue-in-cheek answers! :thumbsup:

[burrfoot]

1. Kayak.com ! n/t

[SOteric]

2. Just as I was about to tell you that there's no way I'm rowing a kayak

to the East Coast....

Wow! Thanks! I've never even heard of this one before.

[burrfoot]

6. No problem!

I should second what the poster below said, however- be aware that some airlines don't use those sites, so by extension they won't show up on Kayak. By and large I think it's a pretty good way to go though.


:toast:

[Kali]

3. depending on your travel style,

the Thorntree discussion boards at Lonely Planet used to be fantastic for info as are their guidebooks, mostly.

I haven't been very active over there (or been anywhere but familiar places in Mexico) in some time but that is a good place to get info, including opinions on travel purchase sites.

[siligut]

4. Journeywoman, travel magazine for women

http://www.journeywoman.com/ Generally good advice as to customs, what to wear, what to see, where to eat, stuff like that.

[HERVEPA]

5. Definitely Kayak

but remember some airlines don't have their flights on some some of these sites. Southwest especially.

[MorningGlow]

7. I've given up on the aggregating travel sites

Been burned too many times. I've used Orbitz, Expedia, Travelocity. What I've found happens is those sites always say "yes"--to your chosen flights, your chosen seats on those flights, your hotel reservations...and then you're the first ones bumped without even a "by your leave". I've had my reserved seats changed on flights to accommodate others--once they even moved my 4 YO son to a row by himself, way far away from the seat they switched me to!

Another time we got plonked into an entirely DIFFERENT hotel in Orlando, even though they said our reservations at the hotel we had chosen were confirmed. They called with apologies the night before we caught our flight to Florida. :banghead: That turned out well, however, because I raised HOLY HELL, and they comped us the entire hotel stay, plus for the last three days they moved us to the hotel we had originally chosen, and they gave us a suite. Not that we needed a dining room area with a table that seated eight...but it was kinda fun. :evilgrin:

If you're mild-mannered and laid back about your travel plans, those sites can be convenient, but I didn't discover any special deals on airfare on them. Now I just use them to view all the airlines' flights in one place, but I make my reservations through the airline's site.

[MorningGlow]

8. Something else to consider...

Just got an e-mail blast from Democrats.com to boycott Orbitz, as they advertise on Fox.

[MrCoffee]

9. I like mobissimo.com

They aggregate the aggregators. It's meta-aggregation on a grand scale. And they have a really weird bouncing eyeball/olive/sperm logo thing.

Be prepared when you enter your search, it'll open the mobissimo summary screen and also browser pages for all the sites they search...which freaked me right out the first time I did it. It's kinda porn-y that way. Or so I've heard.