What s the best airfare metasearch site?

As online shopping becomes more complex, metasearch may be more important than ever. (Photo: Getty Images/iStockphoto)

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In the beginning, there were airline sites. Then there were online travel agencies, such as Expedia, Hotwire, Orbitz, Priceline and Travelocity. And then about 10 years ago came the travel metasearch sites, sometimes called search sites or aggregators.

All three shopping models still exist and new players are entering the U.S. market, such as U.K.-based Skyscanner. But as online shopping becomes more complex, metasearch may be more important than ever. That's why we examined seven leading sites — and compared them head-to-head on their airfare products.

The lowest-fare conundrum

Who doesn't want to find the absolute lowest price? But cost may not always be the definitive factor. For example, after sifting through our seven sites, we found the lowest fare from New York to London was available for $795 via Kayak. But it consisted of an Air France itinerary with connecting flights on Ryanair. For $41 more, Momondo offered non-stops both ways — British Airways eastbound, Virgin Atlantic back. Personally, I consider paying $41 to avoid a connection a bargain; avoiding Ryanair is priceless.

The fact is, there are all kinds of travelers with all kinds of wants and needs, so there is no one-size-fits-all when it comes to airfares. We limited our searches to one-stop itineraries, but these sites also provide multiple connections, as well as complicated itineraries with lengthy layovers, red-eye arrivals and connections on multiple airlines, which could lead to problems with missed flights or mishandled baggage. If you're a backpacker who doesn't mind sleeping in an airport terminal, then metasearch sites are your best bet for rock-bottom fares. For everyone else, the key is to use the sorting tools, so you can tailor the trip that works for you.

As for those tools, Kayak still offers the best: a full array that allows you to easily and intuitively tailor departure and arrival times to the half hour, as well as add or subtract airlines, stops, airports, cabin classes, flight leg and layover times, aircraft types -- and of course price ranges. A neat bonus is the "Price Trend" graph that offers percentages on whether or not the fare might rise.

That said, just this week TripAdvisor revamped its interface. and added some neat bells and whistles, including user photos of aircraft cabins and details on everything from legroom to power ports. (However, the benefits of TripAdvisor's user-generated "airline ratings" are probably best discussed in a separate column.) Meanwhile, Momondo also provides helpful filters, such as sorting by airline alliances and connecting hubs, while discretionary travelers are given 12-month pricing trends. Similarly, ITA Software's airline summary box saves time.

So who is lowest?

The chart below says it all. We compared three itineraries on both domestic and international flights, with a variety of booking windows ranging from 48 hours to six weeks. All testing was rigidly conducted on an apples-to-apples basis using identical parameters and in real time with seven colleagues searching simultaneously.

Using price as the criterion to sort results (as opposed to travel times or other factors), Kayak was the only site to provide lowest fares in all three cases. Hipmunk and Momondo also performed well, when comparing strictly by price. But all of the lowest fares involved stops in at least one direction, while Mobissimo provided competitively priced non-stops.