How to find the best price on airfare (for real)

You’ve heard of Yapta, right? And Kayak? Farecast, too, huh?

Then you probably know about Orbitz. And Travelocity and Expedia. Which means, of course, you’re an expert on finding cheap airfare. Well, you’re a few steps ahead of me. I’ve been booking a lot of flights this summer, and every time I think I’ve done well on price, some new fare-finding service comes out and reminds me otherwise.

Actually, I have heard of all the sites above. I just wasn’t sure I was keeping up with all the developments. So I was glad to see a good overview of the fare-finding process in a recent L.A. Times story, “Surfing the Internet before you fly can uncover the best fare.”

As it turns out, I was up on most of them, though sites like SideStep.com and Mobissimo.com were news. The best tip in the article wasn’t about any individual sites out there, though, but on how to use all of them together to your advantage. Author Peter Pae lays out a three-step process: in short, search the sites of your favorite airlines, then the fare-finder sites (like Orbitz and and Kayak), then stop by fare monitoring sites like Yapta and Farecast.

Pae gives other fare-finding tips in the article, too, and there’s an interesting lead about how Farecast came about. It’s well worth a read if you’ll be flying this summer.