Shopping for an international airfare online is best done in stages. Every time you visit one of the dozens of online travel sites the fare to your intended destination will likely change. Sometimes its cheaper and sometimes not. This blog deals with the online travel sites that just search for the date and schedule you want and and returns options to consider. They are paid from a small markup from the airline and from some ads in the margin. Some of the more popular Online travel sites are www.EXPEDIA.com. www.TRAVELOCITY.com or www.ORBITZ.com. They do a good job of mapping out all the possibilities of getting you to your selected destination and home again. They do it well and will search most airlines to get you a reasonable selection of options to select from based on price, schedule and number of stops. You can screen for preferred airlines (i.e Delta.com) and even set a filter to eliminate too many connections. In theory you are seeing what the airlines offers at their sites but I have found that sometimes it pays to look at the airline site as well to see if perchance they may have something else to consider or even a "special". Fares for the same routing can vary many times a day so it pays to check them all. Prices will also vary based on dates selected, time of the year and demand for those airline seats. In other words, who is your competition for those seats. If you plan to travel to London in late July you'll be competing with the world trying to get there for the summer Olympics. If there is a big trade show that week, you'll have lots of businessmen traveling who can generally pay more so the airlines obliges by not discounting their seats. If you want to go to Rome or Paris in July you'll have tourists in place of the business traveler. My suggestion is to check these sites beginning 3-4 months before traveling and then monitor regularly for a while before booking. There is not urgency to book anytime before April for July trip. The airline is in no hurry to discount and they don't even know the final demand for a trip in late June (more on when to book in an upcoming blog). Also look for other nearby gateway European cities that may offer cheaper fares direct from North America. For example fly to Manchester, England instead of London, Lyon instead of Paris. You can use these online travel booking sites to also check internal European flights on a whole host of discount air carriers within Europe that fly to Tallinn. Part 3 next week: the ONLINE AGGREGATOR.
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