Travel plans are one of the less pleasant parts of a vacation or trip. However, saving money certainly makes the planning pay off, and several travel sites have developed over the years to supply discount offers and online convenience to ensure better travel plans and hopefully, great trips. Some of the best travel discount sites are Expedia, Travelocity, Orbitz, Priceline, and CheapTickets. These each have their strengths that bring customers back again and again. They’re listed below in no particular order, but with useful highlights that will help you decide which travel site will work best for you when you want to purchase airline tickets, rent a car, find vacation packages, or find other services.
Top 5 Discount Travel Comparison Websites:
- Expedia
- Travelocity
- Orbitz
- Priceline
- CheapTickets
Expedia
Expedia is a site for booking airline flights, renting cars, finding discount vacation packages, and more. Search features allow for quick searches that focus on most important details first. Dates, services, and other details can be adjusted to let the user find the best rates for their travel plans. This is a great site for saving your searches and taking notes. It only allows full refunds within the first 24 hours of booking an itinerary.
Highlights:
- Helpful search features
- Limited access to full refunds
- Save and resume searches
Travelocity
At Travelocity the travel planning visitor will find over a hundred thousand options for hotels, cars, cruises, and more from all over the world. Searches start with larger detail and allow a user to refine searches to determine the best accommodations including dates, flights, etc. Frequent travelers will find this site more useful as loyalty rewards add up, but the prices tend to be higher and so the occasional user might not save as much as they’d like.
Highlights:
- Large variety
- Frequent user rewards
- Helpful travel blog
Orbitz
Orbitz offers travel packages that favor frequent travelers or family groups who want to save money. Specializing in discounted package deals, Orbitz then adds extra incentive with further savings for those who purchase packages frequently. Scheduling individual flights or other travel details is still common with them, and the variety of choices they provide makes using Orbitz easy and cost effective. Every booking of a flight earns the user further savings on later travel bookings. Orbitz also provides flexible bookings that examine the three days surrounding your desired travel date to determine if further savings are available to you. With quick and organized arrangement of information, the user can finalize every travel detail including their flight, their transportation on site, their event tickets, and more.
Highlights:
- Great package discounts
- Frequent user loyalty savings
- Good website organization
Priceline
On Priceline’s site a user can name their own price while booking travel and then choose from the bids offered by hotels, airlines, and others. If you have Google Wallet, you can pay immediately for your bookings and pretty much be done with the pre-trip planning. A user can disregard the Name Your Own Price feature and simply do their own searches just like they would on other sites, as well. With other amenities like travel protection and good customer service, Priceline has earned its name brand recognition.
Highlights:
- Name Your Own Price option
- Flexible search features
- Travel protection coverage
CheapTickets
At CheapTickets travelers can book flights, hotels, and events. They also can make local purchases for stay-at-home vacations and ticketed events. The savings are very good and the site allows flexible scheduling and provides travelers insurance. The strength of this site is hotel bookings that help you search for the greatest savings on lodging.
Highlights:
- Provides travelers insurance
- Easy to save money
- Good place to find hotels
Conclusion
Online travel services have changed the way we plan our trips. They offer great discounts on package deals for big events like cruises or local events like concert tickets. Whether you need a detailed package with lodging, transportation, food, and excursions, or you only need airline tickets for four to go see Grandma, these sites are the best for meeting your needs.