Did you ever wonder which of the online travel services like Expedia, Orbitz, CheapTickets or Travelocity is best at finding low air fares?  Because many of these sites provide quotes for only some of the airlines, you’re never sure if you’re getting the best possible fare to your destination.  Recently, I’ve discovered a couple of sites that may help you find the best fare more quickly. 

To make searching the top travel sites easier, try Away.com’s Fare Compare Tool.  Enter your origin and destination along with your travel dates and Away.com will search Expedia, Orbitz, CheapTickets and Travelocity for the best fares. 

And speaking of fares, be sure to read the fine print.  Of the four mentioned above, only Expedia lists their fares with all the taxes and fees included.  

I also found Kayak.com, a meta search engine for over 100 travel sites, and also a Forbes 2006 Best of Web travel site. With Kayak you can search the fares of over 300 airlines.  The only down-side to Kayak is that quotes are not real time. The fares you see on Kayak may be higher when you follow the supplied link to the related travel site.  On the plus side, Kayak automatically searches nearby airports to find the lowest fare.

Update: SideStep.com is another meta search engine similar to Kayak that’s also worth checking out. 

So next time you need to book a flight, try using one of these sites to make your search easier!