I am guessing you’re bored of checking the same old websites while booking your air ticket. Most of these websites, such as Makemytrip in India or flight aggregators like Kayak and Skyscanner have not evolved to add the features of the websites listed here. I have tried most of these websites and am happy to recommend them to you. Happy booking!
Adioso
One of the most intuitive websites for booking flights. Adioso is geek food for compulsive airline fare checkers like me. Instead of destinations, you type keywords or region where you wish to go and the search engine looks up flights in the entire region (Europe, for example) or you can just type ‘anywhere’ to see the best prices to get anywhere. Pick the entire week or month in which you’re planning to travel to further drill down your options. Flights are then sorted into the Cheapest, Best and Fastest. For those of you who’re in your initial stages of planning a trip and need some inspiration, I’d strongly suggest giving Adioso a try.
Google Flights
As with almost everything Google does, Flights is a well-thought and incredibly useful tool. It has many features from most flight aggregator websites with the added benefit of looking at fares in a map view of the entire world. If you ever wanted to know how far a round-trip of INR 30000 will take you for instance, Google Flights is the place to go to. Another unique feature I absolutely love is the filter to destinations as per your interests. Whether its food, culture, adventure or even honeymoon, Google will tell you exactly where to go. Even if you aren’t going anywhere, Google Flights is a fun resource to check fares across the world from your home airport.
Wtfares
A relatively new and unknown entrant in the Indian airline space, Wtfares caught my attention for its policy of offering refundable tickets by booking through their website. Customers pay a slightly higher non-refundable fee of around 10 percent of the ticket cost or a minimum fee of INR 125 to avail this service. If you do cancel your flights, you will get cashback in the form of coupons on the website valid for one year for future bookings. By using the coupon code WTFNOCON, you can get rid of this extra charge in case you’re sure about your flights. Wtfares will then give you a discount on the convenience fee.
Ixigo Flights
Ixigo is a known name in the Indian travel industry but most of us don’t think of it as a flight booking website. Indeed, even on meta aggregators like Kayak, Ixigo’s flights do not show up. Ixigo, though, offers some of the best deals for Indian travelers compared to other similar websites such as Makemytrip and Ibibo. If you’re looking to shave some money from your airfare, Ixigo is the place to book your ticket from.
Skiplagged
Skiplagged is one of the most disruptive flight booking websites to have emerged in recent times. It uses a hidden city algorithm that allows you to book flights to a connecting destination for cheaper instead of flying all the way to an airline’s final port of call. For example, you might find a cheaper ticket for Mumbai to Delhi with a stop in Jodhpur than a direct flight to Jodhpur from Mumbai. This is because airlines figure that the demand for flights between two metros is higher than Mumbai and Jodhpur. Skiplagged helps you find these hidden fares that can get you to a destination for less. All you have to do is not have any checked-in baggage and simply walk away when you reach Jodhpur (from the example above) instead of continuing onwards to Delhi. United Airlines has sued Skiplagged as airlines generally frown upon using this service but there is no word about the legality of using this service in India.
Do you have any websites that I’ve missed? Let me know in the comments below.
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