New Travel Deal Sites: Bing and Other Contenders

Text by Catharine Livingston

Fan of kayak.com? You’re in luck. These days, new metasearch engines for travel—which scan hundreds of sites to bring you the best deals—are popping up all the time. Here’s a look at our three favorite rookies.

1. Voyij.com: The most comprehensive deal-finder yet: Enter your starting point and dates of travel, then hit “Find Sales.” Up comes a list of cheap flights, hotels, and packages.

+BEST FEATURE: Need inspiration? The “Featured Experiences” tool kicks off the search by theme (“fishing,” “outdoors”), then guides you to the most relevant bargains from there.

+DOWNSIDE: Only covers North America and Europe. Stay tuned for Asia and Africa next year.

+ADVENTURE RATING: 4 Stars

2. Bing.com/travel: Microsoft’s much buzzed about foray into the metasearch world covers the basics well (hotel and flight searches), with useful extras like Farecast’s price-predicting system and topical travel blogs.

+BEST FEATURE: The “Hotel Rate Indicator” compares current prices with past rates to see if your chosen digs are indeed offering a good discount.

+DOWNSIDE: The “Destinations” tool only pulls up hotels for a given area. We’d like to see local highlights and activities too.

+ADVENTURE RATING: 3 Stars

3. Optifly.com: The first flight-search tool to scan more than 200 low-cost carriers (think JetBlue for foreign countries) in addition to major airlines, letting you build the cheapest itinerary, period.

+BEST FEATURE: Synchronizes with Google Maps to help you visualize your route—and avoid out-of-the-way connections.

+DOWNSIDE: The destinations could include more teeny-but-key airports (we found Kathmandu, but no Telluride).

+ADVENTURE RATING: 3 Stars