Sidestep, Kayak, Farechaser, Mobissimo and Qixo

The option to search the closeby airports is a big advantage if you
live in a city with multiple airports. if so, Sidestep, Kayak and
Farechaser are better because they perform this search by default.

Kayak is simpler and much faster - it presents the results in a single
table. FareChaser gives you similar results with a breakdown of prices
by "number o stops", time-of-travel, etc.

For a recent search between Los Angeles and Albany, NY, Sidestep pegged
a deal at $263, while Travelocity and Kayak got $302, Farechaser with
$307 and Mobissimo came up with $353. Qixo was somewhere in the middle.

A search for LA to Montreal (Quebec,Canada) was $491 on Kayak, $496 on
Mobissimo, $498 on Travelocity, $501 on and $556 on Sidestep.

Still trying to figure out how Kayak and Sidestep could be on the
opposite ends if they are only showing data available on public-sites?

Bon Voyage!

"PN" wrote in message
ups.com...
Sidestep, ...are better because they perform this search by default.


If one uses SideStep directly in doing a search, the user has the option to
specify nearby airports. However, if SideStep uses the parameters that are
obtained in doing a search with a competitor, then it will examine nearby
airports automatically or by default as you indicate. This is a quirk of
the program that they are aware of. Perhaps the biggest problem with
SideStep in this regard is that when examining nearby airports, it is done
on an "all or nothing" basis. That is, it looks at nearby airports at BOTH
the origin and destination cities and the distance is FIXED at 75 miles.
Alternatives such as itasoftware.com allow one to look at nearby airports at
either the origin and destination OR both. In addition, the user can
specify a distance at 25 mile increments up to 300 miles.

All of the below search engines are too simple. I miss the old Sabre
online search engine. The one where I could say find me a K fare on
DL between AAA and BBB on dd/mm/yyyy. As the search engines have been
made prettier, they have become more dumbed down and less useful.
However, I am in the minority as the average US consumer prefers
"pretty" and "cool" rather than effective.

On 22 Jul 2005 00:18:03 -0700, "PN" wrote:

The option to search the closeby airports is a big advantage if you
live in a city with multiple airports. if so, Sidestep, Kayak and
Farechaser are better because they perform this search by default.

Kayak is simpler and much faster - it presents the results in a single
table. FareChaser gives you similar results with a breakdown of prices
by "number o stops", time-of-travel, etc.

For a recent search between Los Angeles and Albany, NY, Sidestep pegged
a deal at $263, while Travelocity and Kayak got $302, Farechaser with
$307 and Mobissimo came up with $353. Qixo was somewhere in the middle.

A search for LA to Montreal (Quebec,Canada) was $491 on Kayak, $496 on
Mobissimo, $498 on Travelocity, $501 on and $556 on Sidestep.

Still trying to figure out how Kayak and Sidestep could be on the
opposite ends if they are only showing data available on public-sites?

Bon Voyage!