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The following branded content post is brought to you by KAYAK. I’ve been a big fan of Kayak for years, and now that they’ve showcased these features, I’m even more excited to use them!
There are so many things that I wish travel search engines would do for me. Like, assess my personality with FiveThirtyEight-like capacity and quantify which flight will make me the happiest. Not richest, not least sleep deprived, but happiest.
Well, there may not be a personality-assessing robot out there, but KAYAK is the next best thing. They have recently showcased features on their site that will solve several of the travel booking problems people have.
Problem #1: You will fly anywhere as long as it’s nonstop.
Problem Solved: KAYAK has a whole page telling you where you can go.
I HAVE WANTED THIS TO EXIST FOR YEARS. Every now and then I Google “nonstop flights from _____” and even then, it only works part of the time.
Not anymore. Check out KAYAK’s direct flights page and put in your home airport and the month of departure. You’ll get a full list, arranged from shortest flight to longest.
Until a few minutes ago, I had no idea you could fly nonstop from Boston to Tel Aviv! Or from Seattle to San Antonio! Or from Los Angeles to Melbourne!
Seriously, in my opinion, this is the coolest feature on the site.
Problem #2: You really need to be online during your flight.
Problem Solved: Search for wifi flights only.
I’m thrilled that so many airlines are providing wifi these days! And believe me, I’ve made good use of in-flight wifi during my freelancing years, when editors would often spring deadlines on me at the 11th hour. (So glad those times are over.)
But finding out which flights (and which airplanes) actually provide wifi can be a headache. Until now, it was a matter of checking each airline’s website and double-checking whether the airplane type is outfitted for wifi.
Not anymore. KAYAK has dozens of different filter options when you search for flights, and one of them is “search wifi flights only.” So easy!
Problem #3: You don’t know whether you should buy your flight now or its price will drop.
Problem Solved: KAYAK’s Price Forecaster will advise you whether it’s a good idea to buy now or wait.
Predicting when a flight’s fare will be at its lowest can be a huge challenge, even when you fly as often as me. I agonized for more than a week over whether to book a flight to Southeast Asia when fares fell enormously this fall ($659 RT New York to Bangkok, baby!). Eventually, I just bit the bullet and booked it — but I was lucky.
Just to make sure, whenever you search for a flight, the Price Forecaster will tell you whether it’s a good idea to book now or to wait. Additionally, if you choose to wait, KAYAK also lets you sign up for fare alerts and you’ll find out if the price is likely to drop!
Keep in mind that this isn’t 100% foolproof and airlines can change their prices if they want to, but KAYAK gives you a good idea of what is likely to happen.
Problem #4: You want to go somewhere warm, but you’re not sure where.
Problem Solved: KAYAK’s Explore feature lets you filter destinations by weather.
I always hated when I would search for flight deals from Boston during the winter and would always end up with the same two options: Buffalo and Baltimore. Who escapes to Buffalo during the winter?!
KAYAK’s Explore page is great for when you’re looking for destination ideas. You put in your home airport and can filter destinations by price, weather, flight duration, activities, and more.
I put in flights from Boston to somewhere where the temperature is 80 degrees or higher sometime in winter 2016. Interestingly, the two cheapest destinations (under $300 RT) were two lesser-known Caribbean islands: Martinique and St. Thomas!
.@nicole_ruhmann We’ve got filters for that ? ? http://t.co/qunSD3qdhh #TravelProblemSolved http://t.co/MGivyP3oYM
— KAYAK (@KAYAK) September 17, 2015
Finally, if you need extra help, KAYAK is great on Twitter and always happy to help you solve your travel problems. (And they’re great on Twitter — I love their cheeky personality.) Follow KAYAK on Twitter and be sure to check out their #TravelProblemSolved videos on YouTube.
While I’ve always been a KAYAK user, I’m thrilled to see these features. When companies like KAYAK innovate, we all end up winners. For a full list of what KAYAK can do, see the #TravelProblemSolved page.
I love these features. Too many times before I’ve had to combine using Bing Travel (RIP), Google Flights, Delta, Southwest, etc etc etc. Just to get these features. It’s especially helpful for people that don’t have one destination in mind. For example, we want to go to the cheapest Spanish-speaking country in the month of December – and we want to fly direct from Atlanta. This is great!
Rebecka
http://www.loveyourtrip.com
I think the problem 3 is the most useful feature especially for non frequent travellers who don’tave idea about the price drop. I booked a ticket from Stockholm to Bangalore(India) and found the the prices got slashed few days after i booked my tickets. I use to travel a lot nowadays and have started using Kayak.
I tink its pretty useful.
Sofia
http://www.stayaway.com
Oh wow, these are great! LOVE the direct flights option. Thanks for sharing!
That’s awesome that Kayak has a feature that will let you know if it’s a good time to buy. I always wonder about that and am always afraid to pull the trigger due to that.
These are great!! Nice one Kayak.
(Incidentally, I’ve always kinda liked Hipmunk’s agony/ecstasy flight filter, ha.)
The buy it now feature would definitely come in handy for me. It’s so hard to know what the sweet spot is and I almost always end up paying more because I waited.
Even if it isn’t foolproof it will at least take away some of my stress from being indecisive.
I’ve never really used Kayak before because the times I have checked it out it has not been especially helpful for flights from Australia (seems brilliant for the US though). But some of these features might make me check it out as an additional search.
i love, love, love the direct flights feature! I will definitely be working this into my 2016 travel plans!
Jessica
http://www.thebellevoyage.com
Love the update
I think my problem is definitely #1 and #3, Most of the time I spend hours in a random airport trying to kill time. Sometimes they don’t even have a coffee shop or Wi Fi. So I would definitely be glad to see Kayak solving these concerns.
Hey.
That’s a great news update from Kayak. They always seems be an unique from others travel website. Let me check once again how they did wonder …
Thanks
I’ve been using Kayak.com a ton over the last five years. I actually just used the Explore feature to book a trip. I have about 10 days to spare in October between housesitting in Barcelona and needing to catch a Barcelona>Guatemala City flight. I used the feature to help find me somewhere warm to go, Canary Islands! Hoping for 10 days of warm temperatures and sunshine. 🙂
I’ve never heard of Kayak, but having these filters you’ve just mentioned, I think I’ll just use Kayak from now on.
HA i love the idea of finding destinations for weather. MY one problem with kayak is that Southwest doesn’t sure up there. I fly around the US a lot and sometimes Southwest is the best deal, Kinda sucky to have to search a few different sites.
Thanks for the tips!
Oh and PRICE ALERT is my favorite Kayak feature.
I have price alerts for flights back home, to my dream places, and even WORLD CITIES lowest fares to see if I can catch a cheap flight to any awesome cities- highly recommend!
I often use Orbitz, just out of habit. They have had a nonstop only search option and a price drop/raise predictor for awhile now. But glad other search engines are adding the features as well!
I love these new ways to search. Thanks for sharing Kate. I have linked your article to my Friday Favorites post today, as it is one of my favorite travel articles of the week!
Very happy to hear that! Thank you!
I love those features. Sometimes I know that I have time available but don’t know where I want to go. Being able to say “what’s the cheapest flight out of YYT in March to somewhere warm” is fantastic!
woo hooo! Love all these tips, Kate! the price forecaster is clutch!
Are you kidding me. I did a look at Kayak and the prices was almost $5000 more then the published air fare from Delta.
These are AMAZING features! Thank you so much! I just used some tricks with google to find the cheapest flights to Reunion where I am working for the school year, but I hope to use this when I have to buy my return flight!
I love this kayack’s thing !! it solves all the problems that all the people have when they travel
I’ve been a huge fan of Kayak for years – but earlier this year I noticed more and more of their ticketing is being done through Vayama instead. And for the first time, the published price was not the final price. I bought one international trip this summer through Kayak using Vayama – and the price and flights were great – but because I felt there was some bait and switch going on with the pricing, I moved to a different ticketing system for my next trip. I also don’t see as many hacker prices (using different airlines for each leg of the journey to create the best overall trip) as I used to.
I may end up going back to Kayak – I do like their website and filters – but they are no longer my go-to flight source.
I’m a big fan of Kayak too. Funnily enough I’ve used them more for hotels than airfares so far but I always search on them along with a couple of others. They seem to do pretty nicely on price regularly.
Just to get these features. It’s especially helpful for people that don’t have one destination in mind. For example, we want to go to the cheapest Spanish-speaking country in the month of December – and we want to fly direct from Atlanta. This is great!
Oh wow, This is great article LOVE the direct flights option. Thanks for sharing!
Great info, thanks!