As I travel by air up to 20 weeks out of the year, I’m always looking for new tools that help me get the lowest price, the most convenient flights, and the greatest comfort while in the air. It’s an ever-changing matrix, especially in this era of $125/barrel oil as airlines try to adjust to a playing field that changes every day. In the past kayak.com has been my primary search site for airfares, with orbitz.com coming in a close second, and seatguru.com helping me find the most comfortable seat. Now I’m adding three more web sites to the mix: insidetrip.com, vayama.com, and yapta.com. 

As flights are more crowded than ever, a web site that helps me identify historic load factors is one way to avoid staying out of the dreaded middle seat on a long-haul flight. This is only one of 12 parameters--set in three categories: speed, comfort, and ease--you can set at insidetrip.com. Once you identify a flight that meets your criteria, click on the "buy now" button and you’re transported to orbitz.com to complete your purchase.

For example, say I need to book a flight from Los Angeles to Rome on September 24, returning on October 10. The highest scoring flight on insidetrip.com, an American 1-stop round-trip, came in at $1,250.  

Unfortunately this didn’t net me the lowest possible price. Going back to kayak.com I plugged in the same dates and came up with a different 1-stop combination and a price of just $1010; a savings of $240, or almost $500 if traveling with a companion. Since kayak.com doesn’t sell tickets, just aggregates flight information from multiple sources, it directed me to vayama.com to make the purchase.

To insure that this was the best possible price, I checked the American Airlines web site and found that the exact combination of flights, booked directly with the airline, would cost $1,334; $325 per ticket more than the same flights booked through vayama.com, a substantial savings, especially on two tickets.

Finally, if booking far ahead, you might want to investigate protecting yourself against unexpected fare specials at a web site like yapta.com. There you can either book your flight, registering it against future downward price changes, or register a previously booked flight from another site. (It works seamlessly with Expedia, Travelocity, Orbitz and most U.S. airline Web sites, but not with sites that search multiple vendors like my favorite, kayak.com.) As many airlines will offer a voucher for future flights for the difference between what you paid and the new, lower price for the flight, this is a way to put dollars back into your wallet, even after you’ve purchased a ticket.

Experienced Road Warriors--those frequent fliers who rack up hundreds of thousands of air miles each year--all have favorite methods of getting the lowest price, best schedule, and most comfortable flights. This is my method, as it has evolved over the years. The bottom line is that when booking your next flight, especially a pricy overseas one, use multiple resources to get the best combination of price, schedule, overall comfort, and amenities.