Little-known Web sites offer big help with airfares

This post comes from Adam Baker, a staff writer at partner blog Get Rich Slowly.

When booking airfare online, most people think of the popular online aggregation sites. You know the ones: They have the fancy commercials, catchy jingles, and washed-up celebrity pitchmen. While those sites aren’t inherently bad, there are a few well-documented problems with relying solely on these larger engines:

• Many of the aggregation sites neglect to include smaller, budget carriers.
• Larger airline companies may temporarily exclude or intentionally block these aggregation sites from fares.
• Short-term specials or incentive sales aren’t usually aggregated either. They’re often only found by visiting the individual sites of the carriers.

Obviously, there isn’t just one Web site capable of giving you the best deal every time. I wish it were that easy.

Many larger carriers make a significant amount of money off of the loyalty factor -- meaning those individuals and companies who choose to fly the same airline every time for whatever reason. Because of this, they’re not necessarily in a rush to make all their fare data open and available for the world to dissect.

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In most cases, the cheapest fare will be found using a combination of sites depending on your specific travel plans. Here are some lesser-known Web sites you can add to your bag of tricks when searching for the lowest airfare available.

Tripeedo.com. At first glance, Tripeedo may appear like just another aggregation site. But instead of trying to pull information into its own site like Kayak.com, for example, Tripeedo uses your travel information to open new windows.

While having Tripeedo open up five to 10 separate windows may seem annoying, it has several advantages. Because you’re accessing the specific site of the carriers (or other aggregates), you’re able to gain access to some fares that might not have been available to other engines. You’ll also see any advertised specials or fares on each individual site.

The real benefit of Tripeedo is in saving you from having to open up each site and retype your flight information dozens of times. Courtney and I always start our search for flights with Tripeedo.

SkyScanner.net. SkyScanner is a traditional aggregation site. But it actively differentiates (and brands) itself by including a wider variety of budget options than most larger sites of the same type.

Another helpful feature of SkyScanner is the ability to search for a whole month or even a whole year with just the click of a button. For example, you can choose December 2009 as your departure date and easily compare data for different days. If your travel plans are flexible, this is a convenient benefit.

In addition, you don’t have to specify a specific airport, but rather just a city. Many other Web sites allow you to search flexible dates and close airports, but I haven’t found any that make it as easy as SkyScanner. This convenience, and its access to some small budget sites, give it the nod over the larger sites in our book.

WhichBudget.com. WhichBudget is popular in international-traveling circles, and for good reason. Rather than pulling specific pricing information for flights, WhichBudget simply allows you to find budget airlines that fly a specific route.

For example, to plan our upcoming trip to Thailand, Courtney and I used WhichBudget to find budget airlines that flew various potential routes -- Christchurch, New Zealand, to Bangkok, Thailand, for one. This is the type of flight that might not show up at the larger airfare search sites.

This service is especially valuable for places that play host to a variety of smaller, budget airlines, such as Europe and Southeast Asia.

BudgetFlightFinder.com. BudgetFlightFinder is an alternative site to WhichBudget. We’ve only been turned on to it recently, but I’m starting to favor it. Once again, it allows you to find budget airlines that fly a specific route.

Sometimes it’s good to check multiple sites for information like this. For example, on a sample flight path of LAX to IND, WhichBudget shows only Southwest as a budget option. BudgetFlightFinder displays Frontier as the only option for the same path.

Once you’ve uncovered a budget carrier that flies your specific route, you can go to the individual Web site and double check the actual prices.

SeatGuru.com. SeatGuru is a unique site that contains the specific layouts of more than 700 different planes from various airlines. How is this useful information to you?

Well, for each type of aircraft, they label the different seats as “good” (green), “some drawback” (yellow), or “bad” (red).

For example, because of the layout of the hull a specific row may have a considerable amount of extra legroom. Conversely, some rows may be a tighter fit or be close to the engines or infant seating. SeatGuru will show you in full color what to look out for.

They even break down where to find power outlets, overhead television locations and, of course, bathrooms.

This may not directly save you time or money, but it can add value. Next time an agent asks you for your seating preference, you can tell him, “I’ll take 12E, since it has a little extra legroom, a good view of a television, and nice accessibility to the exit after we land.”

Related reading at Get Rich Slowly:

• How to find great deals on vacation and travel
• Travel hacking: Smart ways to see the world
• How to save for the trip of a lifetime