No single site is best at everything, but some do especially well in certain searches important to families. Many also now include information on COVID-19 policies and cleaning procedures. Just about every site allows filtering for the obvious and most basic factors: nonstop flights, specified airports, and the ability to display fares for a range of possible dates. Our list of the best flight booking sites includes both OTAs and metasearch options. But now that so many formerly standard features (being able to bring carry-on baggage, etc.) are now extra-cost options, flight searches that mix standard economy fare for some airlines with pared-down basic economy for others don’t deliver an apples-to-apples comparison, and make true cheap flight comparisons difficult. Some OTAs add small booking fees to some transactions-a fact that’s not always clearly disclosed.įlight searches these days are more complicated than searches a decade ago, when the mix of services and amenities was pretty standard among all major airlines.

Your transaction deal is with the OTA, and if you need help or adjustments with your booked flight, you go through the OTA.

An online travel agent (OTA) is a true flight booking site because it actually sells you the ticket.

To book a flight, you click through to whatever actual seller offers the itinerary you want.

A metasearch flight booking website searches multiple airline ticket sellers, including both individual airlines and OTAs, and displays the options.

The main difference when it comes to finding cheap flights is the one between an online travel agency and metasearch system:

Dozens of online travel agencies (OTAs) and flight metasearch companies promise to do that, and they do, but each of these flight booking sites does it a slightly different way. No matter what else you’re considering for a trip, if you’re flying, chances are your main priority is to find the best flight for you-often the cheapest, or at least the cheapest within schedule constraints.

Best website for flights