Aggregator Services: Where Is the Best Place to Search for Plane Tickets?

TK Media picks the best metasearch engines.

If you can still see long lines at train station ticket counters, air ticket sales have long since moved entirely online. At first, tickets could only be bought directly from airlines, then also from travel agencies, and now the smartest method is to choose tickets through aggregators.

Aggregators, which are essentially the same as metasearch engines for air tickets, work by not selling tickets themselves. Instead, they find them with the airlines and agencies and show the user the most profitable or most suitable options.

Still, some aggregator services do their job better than others. TK Media compares the most popular metasearch engines in Ukraine and determines which one is number one.

CRITERIA

First, let's present the criteria by which aggregators should be evaluated.

Choice of geographic area

If you dream of visiting Great Britain, it may not matter to you which city you fly into, if you plan to travel around many of them. It makes no difference whether it is London, Manchester or even Glasgow, as long as it is cheaper. Previously there were no options other than checking several variants yourself, but now advanced services do the work for you in a few seconds.

What if you want to visit South America and it is not so important which country exactly? And what if you are considering any option in the world for a vacation? A geographic area can be a specific airport, city, country, continent or even the whole world.

Choice of flexible date

Is it not critical for you which exact day you start your trip? Then the services that can select the best options within a range of dates will come in handy, both for departure and for return.

Level of filtering

There are basic filters that all aggregators use to search for tickets, such as the number of transfers, flight duration and so on, but truly advanced services offer much more refined search settings. You work on a strict schedule five days a week, but are ready to spend a weekend in Vienna? Then you will need to filter the search so that only options with departure on Friday evening and return on Sunday are automatically offered to you.

Ready to save money and fly with only carry-on luggage? Or do you need to take a large bag and immediately look for tickets where baggage is included in the fare? Now you don't have to dig around for this either, as you can set it up in the search with a click or two.

Combining low-cost carrier routes

Only relatively recently have aggregators not just started including low-cost carriers in their systems, but also combining their routes. Companies such as Ryanair or WizzAir are not responsible for connections (if the plane is delayed and you miss your next flight, you're on your own), but this does not stop many travelers willing to take risks for low prices.

Modern services aim to offer you the lowest possible price, so they have reached the point where a single route can include services from different low-cost carriers.

This is very relevant for Ukraine, because Ryanair and WizzAir make it possible to fly cheaply to Poland, and from Poland itself there are many inexpensive destinations with these same airlines to various points in Europe. So don't be surprised by tickets for 50-100 euros round trip from Kyiv to Iceland with a connection in Gdansk or Poznan.

Combining with ground transport

This is the most recent competitive offer from ticket search services, but it is very helpful. Want to get to Bruges, but the service shows that flying there costs 300 euros? Most likely, it will be much cheaper and more comfortable for you to fly to Brussels for far less money, and from there get to Bruges by bus, and all of this can easily fit into a budget of 100-120 euros round trip.

Previously, people had to sort through options themselves, but now this work can be done for you.

Apps for iOS and Android

An air ticket aggregator is a huge analytical machine, so not everyone can afford to launch an app in addition to the web version. But those who decide to do so gain additional loyalty benefits from users.

Design

If the previous criteria can be assessed objectively with yes/no answers, here everything will be subjective, on a scale from 1 to 10.

Displaying currency in hryvnias

Displaying offer prices in hryvnias does not guarantee that payment will be made in that currency, since most aggregators simply redirect to the websites of other agencies or airlines, which have their own rules. Still, even showing an approximate cost in your native currency is a plus for Ukrainian users.

SERVICES

Skyscanner

• Choice of geographic area - yes
• Choice of flexible date - no
  
• Level of filtering - medium
  
• Combining low-cost carrier routes - no
  
• Combining with ground transport - no
  
• Apps for iOS and Android - yes
  
• Displaying currency in hryvnias - yes
  
• Design - 7/10
  

Either Skyscanner is focused strictly on business and therefore does not offer combining low-cost carrier routes, or it has simply fallen terribly behind trends and competitors in its technical component.

Skyscanner also does not offer flexible dates, but it is somewhat better with geographic areas: you can choose "the whole world" or a country, but not an entire continent.

Aviasales

• Choice of geographic area - no
• Choice of flexible date - no
  
• Level of filtering - medium
  
• Combining low-cost carrier routes - yes
  
• Combining with ground transport - no
  
• Apps for iOS and Android - yes
  
• Displaying currency in hryvnias - yes
  
• Design - 8/10
  

This Russian service is very popular, but from the user's point of view it does not withstand any criticism: you can select only specific cities for departure and arrival, and only specific dates. Not suitable.

Google Flight

• Choice of geographic area - yes
• Choice of flexible date - no
  
• Level of filtering - medium
  
• Combining low-cost carrier routes - no
  
• Combining with ground transport - no
  
• Apps for iOS and Android - yes
  
• Displaying currency in hryvnias - yes
  
• Design - 6/10
  

Google has not paid enough attention to its aggregator, so the result is still quite mediocre by modern standards. Low-cost carriers are offered, but routes are not combined, there is no date range, and the design is not the best. In addition, the filters do not allow choosing days of the week. Its only advantage is selection by zones, both countries and entire continents.

Tripmydream

• Choice of geographic area - yes
• Choice of flexible date - yes
  
• Level of filtering - high
  
• Combining low-cost carrier routes - yes
  
• Combining with ground transport - no
  
• Apps for iOS and Android - no
  
• Displaying currency in hryvnias - yes
  
• Design - 10/10
  

This Ukrainian service aims to be one of the best aggregators in the world. It has almost everything: geographic areas (by city, country, continent and the whole world), date ranges with ease, and combining low-cost carriers too. Can you only travel on specific days of the week? Filters will help.

Tripmydream lacks only the combination with ground transport, which could reduce prices for offers to some provincial cities several times over.

Kiwi

• Choice of geographic area - yes
• Choice of flexible date - yes
  
• Level of filtering - high
  
• Combining low-cost carrier routes - yes
  
• Combining with ground transport - yes
  
• Apps for iOS and Android - yes
  
• Displaying currency in hryvnias - no
  
• Design - 9/10
  

Kiwi is now the absolute top in air ticket search. It has all the advantages of Tripmydream, but in addition it also offers combining with ground transport.

What does this look like in practice? An experiment

Now we will compare offers for the same routes on the same dates and see which of the services listed above shows the best price.

We chose three diverse routes from Kyiv:

1. Kyiv - Bruges - Kyiv (March 8-12)
2. Kyiv - New York - Kyiv (May 16-22)
3. Kyiv - Reykjavik - Kyiv (April 10-23)

1. Kyiv - Bruges - Kyiv

Skyscanner

Tripmydream

Kiwi (111 euros ~ 3 thousand hryvnias)

Aviasales

Google Flight instead of Bruges suggested flying to Brussels without continuing the route. Kiwi, through a combination of flights with buses, offered the absolutely best price, three times lower than the other aggregators.

2. Kyiv - New York - Kyiv

Skyscanner

Tripmydream

Kiwi (470 euros ~ 12.7 thousand hryvnias)

Aviasales

Google Flight

Credit goes to Aviasales, Skyscanner and Google Flight: despite their technological backwardness, they offered the best prices for the long flight from Kyiv to New York with specific dates. Aviasales also added a fairly decent option in terms of time. But they will not help find the best price within a range of dates.

3. Kyiv - Reykjavik - Kyiv

Skyscanner

Tripmydream

Kiwi (187 euros ~ 5 thousand hryvnias)

Aviasales

Google Flight

Aviasales again offered the best price, but it is not certain that this option is worth grabbing, because it involves changing airports in Warsaw and a very long total journey "there".

Kiwi is 800 hryvnias more expensive, but offers a truly hellish route with three connections.

The most optimal, it seems, was Tripmydream, which, for a slightly higher price than Kiwi, offered routes that are reasonable for travelers in terms of time, with one connection and without changing airports.

***

Conclusion: taking all factors into account, TK Media recommends using Kiwi first and foremost for searching air tickets, as the most technologically advanced site, which provides maximum service and combines flights with buses or trains. Tripmydream's algorithms also deserve attention.

Yevgeny Blazhko, TK Media