Travelzoo.com, home of the Top 20 Deals of the Week, displays the web's best deals on airfare, hotels, car rentals and vacation packages. Its home page allows a user to pick her destination and see all of the deals available for that specific location. This can be very helpful in deciding between, for example, a wine- and tapas-filled honeymoon in Spain, or a lounging, tropical beach honeymoon in Bali. And users can subscribe to receive their weekly Top 20 deals via email every Wednesday to stay on top of just-released and soon-to-disappear deals. The Washington Post named Travelzoo as one of its "54 Online Travel Sites to Bookmark Now," calling it "well-organized and full of bargains."
Yapta.com tracks price fluctuations for airline tickets. In rating the best new airline sites in 2008, Travel and Leisure magazine chose Yapta as best for watching for price drops and scoring refunds. If the price drops after a purchase, you receive a refund for the difference. Yapta will also email you when prices for a particular flight drop.
Penny-pinchers with flexible schedules can find last-minute deals at Lastminute.com, another of the Washington Post's "54 Online Travel Sites to Bookmark Now." The best deals can usually be found during off-peak travel seasons.
Travelers who wish to avoid possible buyer's remorse from booking on one major travel site over another can visit Kayak.com, which compares the best rates from several sites, such as Orbitz, Travelocity and Cheaptickets.com. After you enter your specifications for flights, hotels, cars or vacation packages, Kayak assembles a long list of results from across the web, with the option to further refine your search by flight time, airport, hotels, amenities and more. Selecting your ideal match takes you directly to the site that boasts the best deal. Kiplinger.com has named Kayak as one of its "28 Best Travel Sites," particularly for airfare, and Consumersearch.com identified Kayak as its "Best Travel Search Engine."
