The Best Online Travel Agencies

There seems to be much debate as to what online travel agency is the best to go with so we've narrowed it down for you to the best 4 places to look. Here we provide you with our detailed analysis of the situation so you can easily make the best decision whether you are planning a vacation or traveling for business.

The Final 4

Our favorite 4 sites for all types of travel were Expedia, Kayak, Orbitz, and Travelocity. We checked out a few others and we just weren't that impressed. The sites we have selected offer great features such as the ability to search for flights with flexible dates, hotel ratings, and an extensive collection traveler reviews. We also found that these companies were able to pull some extra deals for you due to their size in the industry. In-hotel spending money and extra night stays were just some of the good stuff we found.

Travelocity & Orbitz

Orbitz and Travelocity are both great sites and both companies offer competitive deals on vacation packages as well as solo flights. It was tough to decided which was better considering that the site layouts were similar and you could search with flexible dates to maximize your savings. Our biggest peave with these 2 was getting big pop-up ads... could anything be more annoying?

We had a bit of trouble navigating around Travelocity, but eventually things worked out and we found a few different deals that were not available on competitor websites. We had to give them the thumbs up in the end, but they just did't have what we were looking for to win the gold.

We also found some good stuff at Orbitz and found that they have a special niche in providing business travelers with excellent service. Travelocity also has a business service, but Orbitz has the reputation of being #1 in business travel according to Business Traveler Magazine from 2003-2005. We had to give them kudos for that.

Overall, Travelocity is a bit better for the average joe and Orbitz is a bit better for the business traveller. To be fair, we decided to call it a tie. Both of these quality travel agencies were still missing something, which leads us to our winner!

Expedia

Expedia is a great choice for complete vacation packages because they offer a rewards program for FREE travel! Their rates are usually the same as Travelocity and Orbitz, but the travel points can be a big advantage. You will even get travel reward points on top of any frequent flier miles you accumulate or other credit card rewards programs you may be a part of!

We also found the Expedia website a bit easier to navigate with the ability to change flights, dates, and hotels without any issues! It was nice to be able to tweak our trip and see alternative travel dates to get better prices.

Surpisingly, this free points deal hasn't been offered anywhere before and is an enormous benefit to frequent travellers! The travel reward program makes us lean toward Expedia when booking vacation packages. There are no black out dates and the limitations of the program are minimal.

We also recommend maximizing your travel rewards by booking with the Discover Miles Card, which will reward you a 2% rebate for every dollar spent on travel and restaurant purchases + 12,000 bonus miles.

Hey Wait! What about Kayak?

Kayak is an interesting tool developed by the co-founders of Expedia, Orbitz, Travelocity. Kayak will scan over 140 different online travel agencies to find you the best deal on flights, hotels, cruises, or cars! This will save you tons of money, but does not allow you to book complete vacation packages like the other online travel agencies. Kayak is still our favorite!