The “big three” online travel agencies Expedia.com, Travelocity.com, and Orbitz.com, sell most of the air tickets bought on the Internet. (Canadian travelers should try expedia.ca and Travelocity.ca; U.K. residents can go to expedia.co.uk and opodo.co.uk.) Each has different business deals with the airlines and might offer different fares on the same flights, so it’s wise to shop around. Expedia and Travelocity will also send you e-mail notification when a cheap fare becomes available to your favorite destination. Of the smaller travel agency websites, SideStep (www.sidestep.com) has gotten the best reviews from Frommer’s authors. It’s a browser add-on that purports to “search 140 sites at once,” but in reality it beats competitorsfares only as often as other sites do. Also remember to check airline websites, especially those for low-fare carriers whose fares are often misreported or simply missing from trave agency websites. Even with major airlines, you can often shave a few bucks from a fare by booking directly through the airline and avoiding a travel agency’s transaction fee. But you’ll get these discounts only by booking online: Most airlines now offer online-only fares that even their phone agents know nothing about. For the websites of airlines that fly to and from your destination, go to “Getting There,” below.

Great last-minute deals are available through free weekly e-mail services provided directly by the airlines. Most of these are announced on Tuesday or Wednesday and must be purchased online. Most are valid only for travel that weekend, but some can be booked weeks or months in advance. Sign up for weekly e-mail alerts at airline websites, or check megasites such as Smarter Living (smarterliving.com) that compile comprehensive lists of last-minute specials. For last-minute trips, site59.com in the U.S. and lastminute.comin Europe often have better deals than the major-label sites.

If you’re willing to give up some control over your flight details, use an opaque fare service like Priceline (www.priceline.com; www.priceline.co.uk for Europeans) or Hotwire (www.hotwire.com). Both offer rock-bottom prices in exchange for travel on a “mystery airline” at a mysterious time of day, often with a mysterious change of planes en route. The mystery airlines are all major, well-known carriers. Priceline usually has better deals than Hotwire, but you have to play their “name our price” game. If you’re new at this, the helpful folks at BiddingFor Travel (www.biddingfortravel.com) do a good job of demystifying Priceline’s prices. Priceline and Hotwire are great for flights within North America and between the U.S. and Europe.

SURFING FOR HOTELS
Shopping online for hotels is much easier in the U.S., Canada, and certain parts of Europe, including Spain, than it is in the rest of the world. Of the “big three” sites, Expedia might be the best choice, thanks to its long list of special deals. Travelocity runs a close second. Hotel specialist sites hotels.com and hoteldiscounts.com are also reliable. An excellent free program, TravelAxe (www.travelaxe.net), can help you search multiple hotel sites at once, even ones you might neverhave heard of. Priceline and Hotwire are even better for hotels than for airfares; with both, you’re allowed to pick the neighborhood and quality level of your hotel before offering up your money. Priceline’s hotel product even covers Europe and Asia, though it’s much better at getting five-star lodging for three-star prices than at finding anything at the bottom of the scale. Note: Hotwire overrates its hotels by one star—what Hotwire calls a four-star is a three-star anywhere else.

 

SURFING FOR RENTAL CARS
For booking rental cars online, the best deals are usually found at rental-car company websites, although all the major online travel agencies also offer rental-car reservations services. Priceline and Hotwire work well for rental cars, too; the only “mystery” is which major rental company you get, and for most travelers, the difference among Hertz, Avis, and Budget is negligible.