I just received a tral magazine today that gasve me a few names that were unfamiliar to me for booking airfare, other than orbitz, etc.

Try www.kayak.com or www.mobissimo.com

In addition, it says that while many sites advertise that they will match fares, etc...good luck collecting. They say that there is no recourse to collect either.

Orbitz offers $20 off at times for comparison shopping. It is so restricted with blackouts and other caveats it is not very rewarding in the long run.

Just thought that I would pass this info. on. Hope you find it interesting.

Interesting, but like many of those sites it will only let you price round trip, no open jaw, which I'm often looking for.
For fun I just checked my dates for Florida to New York in June that American is quoting me $135 round trip for. Both of these sites showed the lowest at $161 -- both on American -- same flights.

As an FYI, Kayak is still underconstruction

It very much behooves you to learn the syntax at ITA - www.itasoftware.com. It's not a booking engine, so you need to go to the airline's own phone centers or websites (or Expedia et al) to book tickets, but it's a very efficient way to price things out, compare dates, see what carriers serve where, all that.

Try www.BookingBuddy.com. Plug in basic travel info just one time and then you can do searches on a few dozen major travel search engines, including kayak, mobissmo, expedia, travelocity, orbitz, sidestep, etc., etc., etc....

BookingBuddy ... a great time-saver when you want to do multiple searches!

I too recently read the Budget Travel article re: travel aggregator websites. For fun I did a Jamaica search that resulted in a $200 savings above and beyond an identical itinerary that I selected on expedia, travelocity, orbitz. The web site I used was sidestep.com.

The newest issue also discusses how some hotels are hostile to travelers who book on expedia-type sites. I did not realize that; an anonymous hotel executive went so far to say that his/her hotel gives those who book on similar sites a inferior room as a type of punishment! I guess it pays to book directly from the hotel.

GeoNit, is BookingBuddy similar to Sidestep? Have you used them both? I'd be curious to know the differences.

BookingBuddy.com saves time when you want to search several websites, including SideStep, because you only have to enter basic information once in order to search all of the websites available.