Thursday, February 19, 2009

Expedia vs Travelocity - Lowest Airfare

Let's again test out the online travel agents in a head-to-head challenge to see who has the cheapest economy airfares. We have selected some routes and travel dates at random and have checked prices at Expedia and Travelocity. We will not worry about non-stop flights, just the lowest ticket price.

Flight Test - US Domestic

New York - Los Angeles
Both Expedia and Travelocity returned the same results, a fare of $266 available on American, United, Virgin America, Delta and Northwest.

Dallas Fort Worth - Anchorage
Both $596 with Northwest.

Chicago - Orlando

Again both $190, with United.

So on these domestic flights both agents are returning exactly the same fares. Let's widen the net to international flights worldwide:

Washington - Paris
Expedia $563, Travelocity $567, Lufthansa flight operated by United.

San Francisco - Tokyo
Expedia $870, Travelocity $881, Asiana

Atlanta - Buenos Aires
Expedia $689, Travelocity $693, United

Toronto - Johannesburg
Expedia $1,105, Travelocity $1,109, Northwest/KLM

Boston - Mexico City

Expedia $457 American, Travelocity $513 Continental

Miami - Vancouver

Expedia $387, Travelocity $387, American

New York - Hong Kong
Expedia $773, Travelocity $801, United

London - Sydney
Expedia $901, Travelocity $904, Etihad

Los Angeles - Auckland
Expedia $973, Travelocity $977, Air New Zealand

So the winner here is...EXPEDIA which was lower on all international fares we tested and equal on all North American fares. While this is only a small test (ideally we would need to consistently test thousands of airfares) it does give a rough idea at airfare pricing.

Next time we will pit the winner up against agents Orbitz and Cheaptickets under the same test conditions...

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