The Battle of the Discount Travel Search Engines: Kayak Versus Sidestep

With the country in the financial shape that it is presently in, consumers are looking for any and every way to save a buck. Therefore, thoughts of a recession on the horizon makes travelers reconsider their summer vacations. This brings up methods that families and the like can still have some form of vacation. Enter the discount travel websites of Kayak.com and Sidestep.com. Before making a comparison, it is best to take a look at both sites individually.

Kayak

Kayak.com is a website that enables potential travelers the opportunity to search for flights, hotels, cars, and cruises from one convenient site. This eliminates the need for a consumer to visit multiple sites to gather this information. It also offers deals that are available for users to take advantage. One is able to look at pricing for any flight available to a destination, and is able to check the price for it on several different sites, including Orbitz, CheapTickets, and even the airline itself. This site offers a listing, a matrix, and a chart in which to view the selected flights. For hotels it offers a listing, a map, or photos. The other unique thing about the site it that it has sliders allow one to move them left or right to narrow the options. One also can remove check marks to omit specific carriers or star rating from the search results. The one downside of using this for flights is that it does not include Southwest Airlines in search results.

Sidestep

Sidestep.com is another website that simplifies the search for travel. It is similar to of Kayak, in that it allows one to narrow the search results by using sliders or checkmark removal. This site also offers that option to choose from flights, hotels, cars, cruises, vacations, buzz, travel guides, and deals. Providers in which one is able to get pricing from include CheapTickets, Orbitz, LastMinuteTravel, Hotels.com, and TravelWorm. Sidestep also offers the option of a toolbar that can be loaded into the web browser.

The Comparison

Recently Kayak and Sidestep have joined forces. Thus, many of the features will be available on both sites that were only available on one site. These changes should start to become apparent in the next few months. For the most part the sites are very similar. One can find pricing to be the same, which may be a result of the recent merger. Both sites offer something called "Buzz" which allows one to choose a departure city and the engine will display the top 25 sites with departure dates and return dates for a very low fare. This is perfect for the traveler who is searching for a place to go and does not really have an idea as to their destination.

One thing that Sidestep currently offers that Kayak does not is the Travel Guide. This tool allows one to chose from the world's top destinations, such as London or Paris. After selecting the destination the site then displays attractions, hotels, restaurants, entertainment, nightlife, and shopping destinations within that specific city. In addition, it provides many areas needed to plan a trip, including suggested itineraries.

Final Recommendation

My final recommendation is to go with Sidestep. It presently offers many more options for the traveler that will assist in the travel planning process. It is wonderful to have both as an option in when there are so many options for consumers.