I am looking to book tickets for Europe this fall. I have looked on the usual sites, including individual airline sites. I also checked Kayak and the rates are significantly better, at least on the surface. Is booking through Kayak or similar sites worth using? How do they work?
Posted by
Phoenix🌵
3070 posts
Book directly with the airline. If you have a problem, the airline will help you. The airline won’t help you if you book through a 3rd party.
Posted by
Edmonds, WA 🌨 ☂
11875 posts
the rates are significantly better, at least on the surface
Are you sure you have a true, identical comparison? If so, I would contact the airline to see if they will do a price match.
I concur with the 'book with the airline' advice
Posted by
Seattle, WA
17418 posts
Kayak will show some cheap routes, either one with long layovers or multiple changes, or “;hacker”:fares, putting together two different airlines. If anything goes wrong, you won’t know which airline can help, and both will deny responsibility. Best to book directly with the airline you want as advised above.
Posted by
Huntsville, AL, USA
8319 posts
Just not worth booking with Kayak if there's a problem with one of your flights. I now only buy directly from an airline online.
I still use MatrixITASoftware to research all my flights, however they don't book flights.
Posted by
Paris
10189 posts
You can't actually book anything with kayak anyway, can you ? It directs you to different sites to purchase doesn’t it?
Posted by
Hudson Valley
2267 posts
Kim is right- for flights, Kayak serves only as a data aggregator, not a seller.
It’s maybe ok for looking at options (I prefer google flights), but be sure that you link out to buy from the airlines directly, not a third-party ‘online travel agency’
Posted by
Minnesota 🎒
16537 posts
Not to frighten you but should this sort of thing happen to you (not the part about opera tickets)....
https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/general-europe/culture-of-cancellation
....you'll want to be dealing directly with the airline and not a 3rd party: book with the airline.
Posted by
Virginia
634 posts
Some of the cheaper airfares are offered by 3rd party vendors that tack on their service fee at the end which pretty much nullifies the cheaper fare. Go with the airline directly specially nowadays when quite a few flights get cancelled or rescheduled.
Posted by
la la land...
1004 posts
Never buy from/through Kayak. They show itineraries that involve airport changes, such as needing to get from Newark to JFK via ground transport to make a connection (also do that with London as a transit city). It is in the fine print, so caveat emptor, but I imagine people have been tripped up by it with disastrous consequences.
Kayak isn't even the best site to do flight research on. Google Flights is my favorite, and the more you work with it and figure out how to use the site, the better it gets.
Agree with others: research flights, but always buy directly from the airline. Never buy from any aggregator, if there is a problem, the airline will tell you to sort it out where you bought the tickets...
Posted by
Bainbridge Island, WA
288 posts
I use Kayak to get an idea of which airlines are flying to my destination and to get an idea of the pricing then I always go to the airline's official site to actually book a ticket. I find Kayak is a good reference tool, along with other sites such as Google flights. But I agree with the other comments about not booking through third party sites because you will get better customer service if you go through the airline directly (same with hotels in most cases).
Posted by
Northamptonshire, England
33818 posts
I guess that kayaks are good for one person, but I prefer a rowboat. Actually a motorboat, I'm getting too old to row,... :-)