Comparing Airline Fares

In case anyone else is curious - I decided to compare different airfare finders, and figured I might as well post it, both for easy reference in the future and in case it could be of use to other people. Therefore, below is a list of what I came up with as far as prices. All prices were found during my lunchtime on Wednesday, June 7th. The test-flight I used was for three adults, from Detroit, MI, USA to Shannon, Ireland, leaving on August 9 2006 and returning on August 22 2006, no specified time of day. Prices shown are per person.

http://www.cheapair.com - $812 with taxes, on American Airlines
http://www.travelnow.com - $812 with taxes, on American
http://re2.farechase.yahoo.com - $814 with taxes, on American
http://www.mobissimo.com - $814 with taxes, on American
http://flycheapabroad.com - $824 with taxes, on American
http://www.cheapseats.com - $826 with taxes, on American
https://www.orbitz.com - $843 with taxes, on combination US Airways and Northwest
http://travel.travelocity.com - $891 with taxes, combination US Airways and Northwest
http://www.lowestfare.com - $910 with taxes, on Delta
http://www.cheapoair.com - $930 with taxes, on Delta
http://www.bookairlinetickets.com - $930 with taxes, on US Airways
https://travel.ultimatefares.com - $990 with tax, on Air Canada
https://www.air-gorilla.com - $1003 with tax, on Air Canada

Hotwire found the $812 price but insisted it was sold out the second I tried to buy it (I could still go back to the other search engines as well as American's own website and get the $812 price). Cheaptickets.com could not find a flight between these two locations, but was willing to take me to Dublin for $900-something. I tried a couple other search engines as well, most of which are not noted because they either were the exact same as a listed engine or came back with an extremely high price of high $1000s through almost $3000 per ticket.

All of these and many, many more can be reached through http://www.bookingbuddy.com/.

Also, http://www.kayak.com/h/buzz is useful for comparing flight prices that other people recently purchased in case you want to see whether what you've come up with is reasonable. Of course, so many factors go into this that you're not likely to come up with the same price as someone else.. whether cheaper or more expensive. Also, August is not the cheapest time to travel to Ireland. By far not the worst, however - that would be earlier in the summer. Best would, of course, involve winter and freezing and rain. And people don't want to go?