Best Websites for your Travel Fares
 

The first site I always look at is Expedia.com
If anything, they are $1 cheaper than Orbitz.com

I'm not very familiar with any other sites though
I don't like Priceline because they make you commit before you actually know your plans.

i like webjet... but i believe its really only for Aussie customers. (not sure about that, could be wrong).

really cheap flights.
as far as i know, the cheapest for Australian domestic routes.

maybe Virgin Blue might be cheaper..

Travelocity has always served me well. I particularly like the email alert feature they have, notifying me when fares to my favorite cities drop by $25 or more.

CheapTickets.com has also served me well in the past.

the wife does all the bookings.. but she uses them all... from the airlines to the aggregators...and she usually watches them over the course of the year so she kind of knows the fluctuation of prices.

There are several that I check out. The ones I use most frequently I'll list first:

http://www.orbitz.com
http://www.travelzoo.com
http://www.slh.com
http://www.chartwelltravel.com
http://www.moments-notice.com
http://www.flyyellowairtaxi.com
http://www.sidestep.com

Cheapfares.com

I usually check travelociy but buy the tix from the airlines. You can save up to $5 in booking fees that way.

LSD

For airfares, I always check www.itasoftware.com, and www.sidestep.com. ITA is great - it allows you to see how all the airlines compare against each other as well as cost trade-offs (e.g., if you are flying from NY to DC, instead of doing like a half dozen searches since there are 3 major airports in each city, you can just do it once to see which airport pair comes out the cheapest.) The only disadvantage with ITA is that you can't book directly on the site. You need to click on "details", grab the booking codes that they provide and then call the airline directly to get that fare.
For hotels and cars, sidestep is also pretty good.

If you're a student with a school email address (student@yourschool.edu), you can get some smoking deals at http://www.studentuniverse.com . I've seen flights from Phoenix as low as $250 to most of Europe.

If you aren't a student, try http://www.hotwire.com

Be careful with sidestep. Their program that they insist you download, is full of spy-ware. You can find good deals there, though.

lowestfare.com
cheaptickets.com
hotwire.com
octopustravel.com
site59.com

Try hotwire, they always seem to have the lowest prices.

I like Priceline and don't see Halx's objection as being a real drawback - they get you rates that are enough cheaper to make a real difference - for example - I stayed at the Westin in Oklahoma City a few weeks ago - for $55. Going rate for the OKC Westin - $180-225.

I'd like to bump this up to the top as I am having a hard time finding some cheap fares for an upcoming trip. Surprisingly, Orbitz is giving me the best rate so far (sometimes through SideStep). If anybody has any sites that aren't listed here on this thread so far, I'd appreciate it.

I like Orbitz. It's usually the cheapest or within 5 bucks of it. And the interface handles things like multi-city stops much better than cheaptickets, which makes an incomprehensible mess out of it.

I recently did a long weeken in Vegas that I booked on Southwest Airlines Vacations. Its based on double occupancy and has several major cities as destinations. Very reasonable. You get your choice of hotel, number of days, etc.

http://www.bestfares.com
You have to buy a $59 yearly membership but it's totally worth it. You can browse the members' only fares for free.

ty this has been alot of help in my search for an airline ticket.

Me too - thanks, everybody.

I wound up finding a great deal on Travelocity at 7 AM on a Wednesday morning. Somebody told me that Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Saturdays are the best days for low fares...on Tuesday night, the flight was $310 at Orbitz. On Wednesday morning, it was $228 at Travelocity!

Irseg, I found a good deal at cheaptickets but their interface scared the hell out of me, so I backed out.