Sites I Love: Kayak

This is the next post in my Sites I Love Series.  The first one was Rotten Tomatoes.

Kayak is a travel search engine and one of the first to use Ajax and other so called "Web 2.0" features.  When they first launched, I remember that their interface was better than any other site I'd used.  It still is. 

Why I love it:  The user experience.  You enter the parameters for your search and the results are displayed.  But there are also slider bars where you can change the parameters and have the results filter accordingly.  Unlike Travelocity, Expedia and others, Kayak doesn't actually make the sale, but rather refers you off to the sites that they've queried.  The site is also loaded with other features like a chart showing you the trend for the fares for your itinerary, the ability to see the actual times of flights before having to click through, getting alerts, etc.

How It Can Improve:  I actually can't think of much right now.  However, one thing would be to actually note the airlines that might be relevant, but which they didn't query in your search.  As an example, they could note that they didn't query Southwest Airlines.  I get why this wouldn't make business sense to Kayak but, as a consumer, I'd sure like to know what other airlines might not be in Kayak's system that fly to the places I'm heading.  Another improvement would be to provide more information about hotels in the results -- for instance, linking to reviews by other sites like Zagat or Trip Advisor.

At any rate, Kayak has become my go-to site when planning travel.

Comments

[dan]

Check also a site called Trabber. Quite nice UI and very useful to find the best air fares. Here is the address - http://www.trabber.com

[Roger]

Kayak is a cool site, but IMO Sidestep.com (Kayak’s nearest competitor) is a little better. Kayak in many cases may have a lot of results when you do your searches, but I’ve found many dead links within those searches. Sidestep also has a lot more content which I find very valuable, like travel guides and hotel reviews. Check them out, you might actually like what you see. Just thought I’d share this with you. Cheers!

[keith]

You might also want to check out TripCart, they specialize in travel guides for the US, but they also have map based navigation similar to Kayak that allows you to see all of the hotels, zoos, golf courses, etc. in the area.

The address is http://www.tripcart.com