Internet tools for (cheap) travel

[burmans]

Anyone know of good internet tools to help with putting together fares like this.

The sum of all fares - Tips - Travel - theage.com.au

Have had my interest pricked recently by the Asia X $254 flights from KL to London.

I ended up doing something like the age story when I took the family to Europe last year as I had enough QF FF points to get us halfway only (or half of us all the way). Ended up going to Hong Kong then got a flight to LHR on Air NZ for under $1000. But not many tools available to help. Around Europe there appear to be some quite good airfare consolidation sits which (importantly) include low cost airlines, but not many in Oz or Asia. In OZ probably Webjet is best but they don't seem to include the cheapies and are really only good ex OZ.

Only half decent site I found was asiarooms

Airfares - Cheap flight tickets - Buy your Air Tickets on AsiaRooms

This was OK but did not really have the sort of great functionality of some of the other sites worldwide (no Asia X, Tiger for example), any other suggestions?

[JohnK]

Try these websites

Best Flights Low Cost Airlines

Skyscanner

[Alanslegal]

Also a suggestion for flights, hotels etc:-

www.expedia.com.au


For hotel searching best prices, try:-

www.hotelpricefinder.com

If those figures are lower, I will then use those figures for a BRG claim directly upon that hotel.

[Jeffrey O'Neill]

surprisingly i've found expedia au offering some very good hotel deals in the USA lately - some sales with prices down 50%.

i did notice that to get cheaper fares within the USA i had to go to expedia US or travelocity. don't bother with zuji for the US. Their pricing is crazily high.

I've found within asia i have to use a combination of sights. you will find some sights offer quite a few deals, others that are not competitive, and then the odd site that has just one bargain deal amongst over priced rooms.

latestays for last minute bookings. asiatravel can also be good with prepaid deals.

i'm just glad i work some nite sahifts and can put some of the quiet hours in the early morn to good holiday bargains hunting use

[misstam]

I use wotif.com alot to book accommodation in Australia and Asia.

I've booked the 'wot hotel' mystery deals a few times too.
They don't tell you name of the hotel until after you've booked/paid, but if you scan the hotel features pop-ups on the page, it's usually pretty easy to find the matching hotel and all the details.

[bushtuckerman]

Hi Burmans

For Asian hotels I use www.directrooms.com

For flights I find www.airninja.com useful, and better for my needs than the redesigned www.skyscanner.net

If you sign up to AirAsia or Tiger Airways, you will be alerted to their specials. AirAsia in particular has some very good bargains from time to time. I scored free Melb-KLL and KLL-Phuket flights in this way. Of course, I also keep enough QFF points handy to get me home again.

The old faithful Qantas FF is always a good way of getting cheap flights, but I see you are on to it already.

Another way is through BankWest. The Platinum card will get 2 points per $1 spend. For 180,000 points ($90,000 spend) you get $1000 FlightCentre voucher, which is good for a year and can be redeemed on any flight or hotel or whatever. In this way you can have the airline of your choice.

Then of course, if your trip is of a business nature...say to attend a work related conference or exhibition, you can simply stay on for a further week or so, and return again on another tax-deductable flight.

Cheers
Bush