What is the best flight search engine?

Posted on March 1st, 2015. Written by bookingbusinesstravel.

There are many flight search companies available online so it’s essential to understand the reasons for using one company in preference to another, especially if you research and book travel frequently. And especially if you’re arranging travel for business.

There are several factors to be considered when choosing the best flight search engine:

1. Accuracy. Does the search engine use authorised exchange of XML data with the airlines? Or does it simply “screen scrape” And is the information up-to-date or does it rely on old cache memory? After all, you don’t want to offer fares and availability that is unreliable. You’ll waste your time – and look stupid in front of your boss – and important appointments may have been made based on incorrect travel information.
2. Speed. We all love the look and feel of an instant website response but it can be to the detriment of accuracy as detailed above. Better to wait a few seconds rather than waste an hour later!
3. Suppliers. It’s essential that the search results include information from, not only online travel agents, who may need to mark-up the fares, but also, direct from airlines. For example, some search engines offer the no-frills airlines such as easyJet via a travel agent in Spain, but the lowest easyJet fares are always direct from the airline website.
   So why not just go direct to easyJet via a Google Search for easyJet? Well, there might just be an alternative route or airline that you may not have thought of.
4. Where is the search engine company based? If it is a US company, the information is likely to be more US centric. A company based in the UK is likely to concentrate on information relevant to UK customers.
5. Are the results impartial? Or are they based on the highest payer to the search engine company?

After considering the above, my recommendation, for every search, is Skyscanner. The company is based in Edinburgh and is hugely successful. The results are reasonably quick and you can update the fares with one easy click.
Practically all airlines are offered – and direct with authorised fares and availability.
In addition, you can narrow down the results to non-stop, specific airline, departure/arrival time and overall journey time.

Skyscanner is perfect for business travel and leisure travel alike.

Just ensure that you follow our Skyscanner booking tips as listed on my Flight Search Page  

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