Airfare Comparison Tools Part 3: MileWise.com

This is the third and last part of a series of posts covering websites to comparison shop for airfares. The first post covered Kayak.com and the second post covered Superfly.com.

MILEWISE
Very similar to Superfly, MileWise.com allows users to find the best value for flights using cash, miles or points. MileWise tracks all your rewards in one place by telling you how much they're worth, warns you if they are about to expire and supports over 500 reward programs. Their search will figure out how many miles you will earn and factor in your elite level in your reward program.

MileWise is attractive like Kayak and Superfly in its ease of use. From the home page enter your departure and arrival cities, dates of travel, class of service and if you want to shop by exact dates or by flexible dates.

The search results page will sort the airfares by price. The choices will also include flights that can be redeemed with only points or miles. MileWise will translate the reward points/miles into dollars so you can compare if it is worth it to redeem them or pay for the ticket. MileWise also includes the miles/points/rewards you will earn if you belong to an airline rewards program. This is assuming at some point you will redeem the miles you earn.

Search results can be narrowed by ways to pay (cash, miles, points), airlines, cards (American Express, Starwood, Chase, Capital One, Citi), the number of stops and departure/arrival times. If you choose the 'flexible' option from the search page, MileWise will list results by day from which you can narrow search results. MileWise uses Orbitz for flight bookings.

MileWise does have one big shortcoming. It does not display flights for American Airlines nor show any rewards for the airline's Aadvantage frequent flier program. Like Superfly, Southwest Airlines flights do not show up in the search results either. Although I fly American, this website is useful to compare my other reward programs (credit cards American Express, Chase and Citi and Hawaiian Airlines Miles which I use for business travel)

MileWise launched last summer so it's possible further enhancements to their service will be forthcoming.

Airfare Comparison Tools Part 2: Superfly.com

This is the second part of a series of posts covering three websites to comparison shop for airfares. The previous post covered Kayak.com and the next post will cover MileWise.com.

SUPERFLY
Superfly.com unlike Kayak.com also allows you to manage your frequent flier miles, hotel, car and credit card rewards in one place. Similar to Kayak, I like that the search page for Superfly is clean to view and simple to use.

Step 1, select your status if you belong to a frequent flier reward program. Step 2, search for your flights by entering your departure and arrival cities, dates of travel, the number of persons traveling and class of service.

The search results page will list the available flights by 'Net Value' which Superfly indicates is the net of 'Price' less 'Rewards'.

Here is how Superfly defines each part of their formula.
Price - This is the amount you will be charged for the ticket with most taxes and fees included.

Rewards - This is the personal value of the rewards you will receive as a result of purchasing the ticket. Superfly multiplies the flight's distance by your personal base value of mile. They then add any bonus you may receive as a result of the class of your ticket, any multiplier you may have due to your elite status and any extra miles relevant due to airline minimum benchmarks per leg.

Net Value - This is the value specific to you. It combines the ticket's price and the value of your rewards. Superfly reminds you that the cheapest ticket doesn't necessarily offer the best value when you consider the miles earned or rewards you may or may not receive. This is the primary reason users like Superfly.

In other words, if you won't be earning any miles the cost the cost of the ticket is more to you in the long run. But this assumes that you will redeem the miles you earn at some point. Still puzzled about their math. They accept inquiries at math@superfly.com. Click HERE to view their frequently asked questions page.

Once you have chosen your flight, click the 'book' button and you will be directed to Expedia or the website for your airline of choice. So if you are part of American Airline's reward program and you choose an American flight, your browser will be directed to American's website. If you do not belong to an airline's reward program for which you choose to 'book' a flight, Superfly will direct you to Expedia.

Search results can be sorted by price or rewards. You can filter the search results by the number of stops, time of departure or arrival, cabin and preferred airlines. Click 'details' on the same page to find out the type of aircraft and duration of the flight.

If you register at Superfly, you will be able to manage all your rewards in one place, receive help to retrieve passwords for your reward accounts and show off your status on Facebook.

It should be noted that Superfly which launched in May 2010 and covers 65 reward programs does not include Southwest Airlines flights in their search results.

Airfare Comparison Tools Part 1: Kayak.com

Although my choice of air carrier is American Airlines, this does not mean I immediately purchase an airfare from the airline without still doing some price shopping. I still compare American's fare with other airlines and as long as American's fare is reasonably similar to other airlines, I feel secure about making the purchase knowing I have not overpaid for my ticket. If American's fare is much more expensive than other airlines, I will continue searching for other dates until the fare is similar. Depending how strict my travel dates are, my acceptable range between American's fares and other airlines does widen a bit.

Of course most people do flight comparison shopping as the primary way to find the lowest fare. Regardless if you are finding the best fare within a single airline or among several airlines there are three websites that you should be using. This post is about Kayak. Part two will cover Superfly and part three will cover MileWise.

KAYAK

Kayak.com does not sell airline tickets or hotel stays like Orbitz or Expedia. It is a price comparison tool. But besides comparing fares ranked from the lowest to highest between airlines, the website allows the user to also compare fares on Priceline, Expedia, Travelocity, Hotwire and ChaepOair. New browser windows open if you ask Kayak to includes these other websites in your search.

After entering your departure and arrival city and planned flying dates, your search will result in a list of airfares. Users can refine the search by nonstop flights, take-off or landing times, airports, cabin and airlines.

If you find a particular fare of interest, move your mouse over the select button and three buttons appear: details, pin and share. Click the 'details' button to list the flight numbers, type of jet, flight time and estimated number of seats remaining on the flight.

Should you find a great fare to share with others or planning a group trip, click the 'share' button and send emails (or use Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn) that will include the flight information. If you are doing multiple searches or scrolling through several pages of flights, use the 'pin' button to save the flight info at the top of the search results page so you can compare your selected fares side by side.

By clicking the 'select' button, Kayak will open a new window and direct you to the airline's website to purchase the ticket.

Persons using this website should be warned that airfares are constantly changing so do not be surprised if the actual airfare on the airline's website is not the same. Kayak does include a disclaimer that "we make every attempt to get accurate prices, however, prices are not guaranteed."

The upper left corner of the search results page will list additional tools to set price alerts, calculate the cost of including checked-bags and list airline fees and fare charts. The 'fare charts' track the history of fares for your particular search over the past 90 days.

If you see a 'Hacker Fare', this search looks for better round-trip deals by combining tickets issued by two different airlines for each direction of travel.

The website also helps to manage trip plans by allowing the user to store their searches, set alerts for price changes on specific flights or at certain hotels over a period of time as well as help to track reward points. A window prompts users to enter an email address to create a price alert for travel between certain dates.

Click HERE to get the Kayak mobile app for iPhone and iPad.