Travel Deal of the Day (Dec. 7, 2006)

Many people are familiar with websites such as Expedia, Orbitz and Travelocity which allow you to compare prices for flights, car rentals and hotels. These sites make their profit by charging you a booking fee for each reservation. But are you aware that there is an alternative to these websites that allow you to compare prices but do not charge you a booking fee? These sites are known as aggregator websites - aggregators earn money by getting referral fees from the airlines/hotels/car rental companies, allowing them not to charge individual users any money. It is important to be aware of these aggregator websites when looking for travel on the web.

The Deal:
Use aggregator websites when booking travel on the web to avoid the booking fees that are charged by the major travel websites.

How:
Many travel aggregators exist that allow you to find out what prices are being charged by airlines, car rentals or hotels – one such example is:

Kayak.com

The Inside Scoop:
Aggregator websites do not actually allow you to book on their website – instead they simply review the fares available on individual airlines'/hotels'/car rental companies' websites and then refer you to the site you select when you want to book. It is especially important to use an aggregator when searching for travel because you not only find out the publicly available fares (that would be available on sites such as Expedia), but you also obtain the webfares that airline/hotel websites offer only on their websites.