A few weeks ago, Kayak rolled out a new featured, dubbed “Explore.” (It’s a feature right below “Deals” on the left sidebar.) The site maps fares from a given airport and promises to show you everywhere you can afford to fly.

“Explore” set some business media hearts a-twitter (for example…) upon release, with stories of how innovative this site is, but I’m sorry, it’s not good enough. “Explore” is neither a new idea nor the best possible execution of that idea.

Travelocity had “Dream Maps” years ago, which mapped fares from a given city. You clicked on the fare on the map, and you got a detailed list of the fares, the airlines, the fare codes (!), and the rules/dates applicable. You could click on a fare and a calendar with eligible dates popped up. You could choose dates and search for availability on the spot. I miss this.

One major reason I miss Travelocity’s Dream Maps is because they listed all the publicly available fares that were loaded into Sabre. Sure, you had to click through a number of fares before finding something that met your dates, but they were bookable. That’s not what Kayak is providing. You’re not seeing all possible fares. Instead, Kayak’s “Explore” pulls fares from a much more limited pool. From the site itself (emphasis added):

Fares displayed are for round-trip economy class travel found by Kayak users in the last 48 hours. Fares include all taxes and fees but may not include baggage fees charged by carriers. Seats are limited and may not be available on all flights or days. Fares are subject to change and may not be available on all flights or dates.

A rolling 48 hour window of search results is problematic in a number of ways. Not only are fares rapidly outdated, and thus useless in a search, but by limiting your results only to those cities where someone else has found a fare in the past 48 hours, you’re only getting a small number of actual fares. You’re essentially relying on others doing the searches for you. And those fares are pulled for specific dates, not a range of dates. Not necessarily your dates.

The fact that the range of results — based on other people’s searches in the last two days — is likely to be limited is especially problematic if you’re searching from small airports. New York fares might be pretty reliable, but how about Walla Walla, Washington fares?

Other sites have taken a stab at this, too. FareCompare currently comes closest. But I’ve had trouble actually booking some of the fares that come up. Mobissimo lets you search by regional destinations, too. And again, some of those fares aren’t bookable.

Bottom line: I like the idea of Kayak Explore. It’s a great concept. But someone (else?) can and should make it better. I know it’s a moving target, and a big set of data to sift through, but it was done once. Let’s map the complete range of bookable fares — again — to truly empower the consumer.

Related:
- Flexible-date search alternatives for international destinations
- Reader mail: I don’t care where I go, it just has to be cheap

All the attention has been on the Continental-United merger, but that’s not the only M&A action in the travel space. To wit:

• Hertz made an offer to buy Dollar/Thrifty for $41/share. Avis subsequently signaled interest in making a higher bid. Bottom line: The car rental market is about to shrink.
• Google is reportedly in talks to buy ITA Software, which provides much of the functionality for sites like Orbitz, Kayak, TripAdvisor Flights, and others. You can’t just google a ticket today, but you may do so soon.

The battle for Dollar/Thrifty between Hertz and Avis is largely about consolidation and elimination of the competition (much like the “Continited” merger). At the same time, buying Dollar/Thrifty would give Hertz or Avis a larger presence in the comparatively “downmarket” leisure travel segment.

The speculated deal for ITA Software is perhaps more interesting. What will Google do if it gains the technology and software engineering human resources to run better fare searches? Will they offer a search-of-searches, pushing traffic to airlines and online travel agencies, but putting Kayak and their metasearch ilk out of business? Will Google challenge Expedia, Orbitz, Travelocity, et al. themselves and build a Google travel agency? Will Google continue to sell the powerful ITA engine (which ITA lets anyone test drive on their beta site — login as guest) or will they let contracts expire and keep the technology for itself? Plenty of theories, but no answers.

So in the past week, the competitive landscapes for flying, driving, and booking travel have all potentially changed, with minimal visible benefits to the consumer. After all, less competition breeds higher prices.

All we’re missing is a hotel deal and a cruise line merger, and we’ll be all set. (The week is young.)

Nearly three years ago, this site reviewed the then-burgeoning field of airfare aggregators, also known as metasearch sites. These sites let you compare the fares available across multiple airlines and across multiple booking sites, to help you find the lowest fare. Last time, Kayak came out on top. How much has changed in the last three years?

For starters, there are sites which have folded, some new competitors, and sites that changed their model significantly. At the same time, there has been pushback from airlines and suppliers, some of which have resisted the aggregator model. (The lawsuits between American Airlines and Kayak, which initially resulted in American Airlines no longer being listed in Kayak results, was perhaps the most prominent case of pushback. Since October 2008, aa.com results are back in the results. More on that below.)

The result: The golden ring of a truly complete search, covering all the options and all the providers, is still a ways away. No single site actually finds every flight option, every fare, or every seller.

But that doesn’t mean that there aren’t differences between the aggregators. It’s time to disaggregate the aggregators again.

This year, each site was put through multiple tests. Four kinds of itinerary were tested: A large-city to medium-city domestic US flight with multiple carriers offering direct service; a medium-city to small-city domestic US flight with at least one change of plane required; an international flight with a US origin; and international flights (from Paris to Dubai, and Manchester to Madrid) to test how sites do for non-US flights. For each of these flights, I tested a short-term booking (7 days advance purchase) and a longer-term booking (30 days advance purchase).

This time, I compared Kayak, Sidestep, Mobissimo, TripAdvisor Flights, Momondo, Skyscanner, WeGo (formerly Bezurk), Trax, Farecast, Fly.com, and Dohop. Sites which were on the list last time but either folded or stopped doing metasearch include FareChase (bought by Yahoo, then abandoned in March 2009), PriceGrabber, and Qixo.

So which aggregator came out on top in 2009? Here’s the summary, with site-by-site reviews thereafter… (more…)

TechCrunch reported and Budget Travel confirms that American Airlines is pulling its fares out of the granddaddy of all airfare aggregators, Kayak.com. Effective August 1, you won’t see AA fares on Kayak.

TechCrunch also reports, citing “the CEO of a competing travel site” as a source, that American is “considering doing the same with Orbitz. If it does so, other airlines such as Continental and Northwest may follow suit.”

For starters, this stinks for consumers, because it’s making comparison shopping harder. Already we’re stuck comparing apples to oranges, thanks to the variation between the airlines’ myriad fees. But in the long run, I’m betting that pulling out of comparison sites will stink for the airline, too, and we’ll see this decision reversed.

The comparison with Southwest will inevitably arise. Sure, Southwest doesn’t show up in comparison sites, but Southwest customers have been “trained” for years now to skip the search engines and go straight to the airline. American doesn’t have that kind of culture built up, and it’s unlikely to go all-in toward creating such a culture at this point. Just pulling out of Kayak won’t do the trick. And worse, it’s a real pain in the butt to waste time looking all over the internet for the lowest fare. I have always disliked that about Southwest, but hey, it’s working for them. Still, Southwest is the exception — not everyone can pull off selling tickets solely on their their own. Even JetBlue caved in and started publishing fares on other sites.

American Airlines has played these games before. They once yanked first-class fares from Expedia, but came back three weeks later.

This sort of thing goes both ways, too. Notably, online travel agencies don’t claim to cover ALL the options. Orbitz, for example, limits customers’ choices in its rental car search to those companies that pay to be included.

I’m betting that American’s pullout is a bargaining strategy. They hate to pay any referral fees to sites that drive them customers, but they don’t want to lose those customers entirely. Their real goal: to negotiate a smaller revenue split with Kayak and/or Orbitz.

If I’m right, then American’s fares will be back online for comparison shopping within a month or so. If I’m wrong, then we will likely see other airlines do the same, and the business model of Kayak and its competitors is at risk. It’s not just venture capitalists who lose out if those sites fail: The consumer loses. So I really hope my prediction is right.

Reader Mara writes:

My husband and I are planning on flying to Milan from Houston later this fall using US Airways miles, and I’m wondering what the best option for connections would be. The agent tells me we can connect in Philadelphia, or there are Star Alliance flights we can take with Lufthansa, United, or Austrian. We know from reading your site that London Heathrow is bad for connections, and we would love some advice on where to change planes most conveniently. What should we avoid? Unfortunately there’s no Houston to Milan flight we can take! Thanks!

I applaud your strategizing, Mara, and I think you’re well on your way, simply knowing that Heathrow is a place to avoid. (Don’t believe me? Watch the video.)

There’s no nonstop Houston to Milan, so you’re going to be changing planes for this itinerary. So the question is, as you suggest, where to do it.

My general advice for travel to/from the United States: Try to avoid changing planes upon arriving in the US from overseas. You go through passport control and customs at your port of entry, not your final destination, so you have to claim your bags, possibly submit them to search, re-check those bags for your connection, probably change terminals, and hope you’ve left enough time to make the next flight. Not so in most of Europe: Connections are much, much easier in Europe, with customs inspections at your final destination rather than your entry point.

At the same time, the last thing I want to do after an overnight flight is to get onto another plane. Sure, I’ve done it, and sometimes it’s unavoidable, but my preference is always to have the overnight long-haul end at my destination. On overnight flights, try to arrive at your final destination, instead of at a hub requiring a connection.

So, practically, what does this mean for you? On your flight TO Italy, I would make connections in the U.S. and fly over the Atlantic direct to Milan. On the return, I’d make my connection somewhere in Europe and fly the long haul straight to Houston.

A caveat: These itineraries will usually involve different airlines on either end. That could get pricey for cash-money fares, even with codesharing. Try ITA’s search tool to find the best connections, and to get a sense of prices. Kayak.com may be of help, too, for mixed-airline itineraries.

But you said you’re using frequent flyer miles. Good! This is one of the less-celebrated benefits of the “free” ticket: You can mix your itinerary, with one airline going over and a different alliance member coming back. Use that flexibility to your advantage. And note: You won’t be able to view all the options online. You have to call the airline that you have the miles with — in your case, US Airways.

A quick search on arbitrary dates yields a flight from Houston to Philadelphia, and Philadelphia to Milan (all on US Airways). Coming back, consider Lufthansa from Milan to Frankfurt, and continuing from Frankfurt to Houston. Those flights follow the rules I set out, letting you avoid connections in Europe in the morning after your arrival, and skipping the tense fear that you might not make your connecting flight in the US, once you’ve dealt with Homeland Security’s passport control and customs inspections.

Either way you go, good luck, safe travels, and enjoy Milan!

(image)

Downgraded: Odds of seeing pole-dancer art on London-Gatwick approach
First it was the Kentucky Fried Chicken ad featuring a Colonel Sanders image visible from space. Now, a website’s advertisement featuring a giant chalk outline of a poledancing stripper is causing controversy in the UK. The image, in a field below a common approach path for flights to London’s Gatwick Airport, is only visible from the air, but is still causing an affront. It’s likely to be removed soon. But thanks to news reports and posts like this one far more people will see it online than ever would see it from a plane. (Yes, I’m guilty of supporting their marketing machine… I know…)

Upgraded: Kayak.com introduces alliance-based search
Aggregator Kayak.com tweaked its search tools ever so slightly, allowing you to sort by alliance (Star, oneworld, Skyteam) and not just by airline. But you can only sort it that way AFTER you’ve the basic search. (You can search preferred airlines up front, so why not alliances? Meh.) Orbitz has allowed alliance search for some time, but this is the first aggregator that I’m aware of that’s doing this.

Upgraded: Hertz’s environmentalist credibility
Last September, Hertz rolled out its “Green Collection” of rental cars and I was thoroughly unimpressed. Buick LaCrosse? Come on. Where were the hybrids? Well, it took nine months, but Hertz finally got around to buying more genuinely eco-friendly vehicles, with a purchase of 3,400 Toyota Priuses (or is that Prii?). That’s more like it.

Upgraded: Wine in coach. Viva jetBlue!
JetBlue is serving up some slightly more interesting wines than usual the usual coach fare. Thanks to a partnership with Best Cellars, the airline is giving their all-economy class passengers a slightly better guzzle. Choosing wine for coach can be challenging, since it has to be a) cheap, b) in tiny ready-for-sale bottles, unlike in premium cabins, and c) pair-able with a wider range of foods. I hadn’t thought about that last one before: After all, the wine in business and first can presumably be paired with the menu (though that’s not always obvious). But in coach, a wine demands “versatility in pairing with a wide assortment of airport meals people bring on planes, including pan pizzas from Pizza Hut and Taco Bell burritos with chicken and mole sauce.” (Taco Bell has a mole sauce? Really?) Either way, good for jetBlue, and good for their wine-imbibing passengers. (Thanks Tyler!)

Downgraded: US Airways right to serve any wine
Unlike jetBlue… US Airways, which got into trouble for selling booze without a license in New Mexico a few months ago, and which has been serving the sauce with a temporary scrip since then, was denied an extension of its license this past week. Tough break. BYOB, anyone?

Upgraded: Marriott; Downgraded: Ian Schrager (or is it the other way around?)
Look, I happen to like Marriott hotels for what they are: Consistent, clean, competent, and overall comfortable spaces to spend the night. (4 C’s!) They usually don’t have too much bling or pizazz, though some of their big-city properties have that 1980s glitz that has an odd appeal to my mid-to-late-30s, graying-gracefully, receding-hairline self. So when I hear that they’re teaming up with Ian Schrager, king of the boutique hotel, to create a new boutique-y brand, I’m skeptical. It seems like a late-to-the-game attempt to create a “W” chain within a chain. If it adds a little funk to the Marriott decor, great. (Bye bye brass fixtures, please!) But it also smacks of desperation. And isn’t Ian Schrager past this? Seems like he’s here to cash in while the cashin’ in is good.

Upgraded: WestJet’s honesty; Downgraded: Little old ladies’ pensions
Canada’s WestJet (hearts) little old ladies. Not because they’re nice grandmas, but because they’re walking piggy banks, and the airline’s got a hammer. Consider this nugget from the airline’s president:

“There would be a little old lady coming up and she’d have a table and she’d have a chair and she’d have six or seven bags and we’d say ‘Yeah, take it on the plane. No problem.’ Now we’re actually going to charge a little bit of money for taking that table and chair and those extra bags on board. And that incremental revenue that we extract from that little old lady is very, very profitable to us. Some 85% goes to the bottom line.”

Good for him, for saying publicly what other airline executives discuss privately. So I guess the business traveler isn’t the company profit center; the rarely-traveled senior citizen is. Bank it.

Upgraded: Amputees and their TSA experience
Got a prosthetic? The TSA wants to make your security checkpoint experience kinder and gentler. Good! On the other hand…

Downgraded: Sippy cups, and TSA cinema verité
A former Secret Service agent reports that she was harassed when she accidentally carried her child’s sippy cup of water through security. Stupid enough, but it gets more absurd: The TSA actually released a silent security tape of the incident, labeled “Mythbusters,” in their own defense. Feel free to view the videos, read the incident report, review the embarrassed mother’s story, and decide for yourself.

Upgraded: Demolition
Let me make myself perfectly clear: I want to help destroy this hotel. I’ve never been to it, but I want to help Spanish hotel chain NH Hoteles wreck the Alcala Hotel in Madrid. The company is holding a contest to see who can take a sledgehammer to the joint. Only 30 lucky few will get to play rockstar-cum-wrecking ball. Let the spirit of Keith Moon guide you.