Headquartered in Calabasas, CA, CheapAir’s team of 125 travel enthusiasts use cutting edge technology, a boatload of airfare data, and superior customer service to make it easier to buy affordable airline tickets. We’ve built a proprietary shopping engine that scours the web for the lowest prices in a simple, easy to navigate display. We’ll also tell you which flights have amenities and extra fees, so you can make sure you are comparing apples to apples. For expert travel advice, deals and inspiration connect with us on Facebook and Twitter.
When booking a cross-country flight or hotel for a vacation, you’ll want the process to be as quick and painless as possible. CheapAir.com is one of the easiest online travel sites we encountered, and we quickly found options for the most common types of reservations. The site is easy to navigate with bold icons and popup options to help you along the way. Plus, there are no cluttering ads. While you can book flights, hotels and rental cars through CheapAir, you won’t be able to bundle them in a vacation package for one price.
While CheapAir is easy to use, it differs from other online travel sites in some ways. The flight search process is different in format, but you can still find multiple options for the best route. You begin with a standard search field with filter details like destinations and specific or flexible dates. Instead of listing all results one on page, as many other travel websites do, CheapAir narrows your results by flight times first. The results page begins with a side bar listing flights categorized by airlines and their average prices from lowest to highest. If you have no airline preference, you can choose to mix and match for different arrival and departure times. From there, you’ll select times for each leg of your trip. You can also see the number of stops and services available on each flight. This is convenient if you have a preferred airline or travel times, but may be a hassle if you book tickets with different airlines on your departing and returning trips. If this format seems foreign, there are plenty of guides to tell you what you’re clicking along the way.
You can also look for hotels and rental cars through CheapAir. The hotel searches aren’t limited to city, and you can search based on address, landmark or hotel chain. Search results for hotels follow the standard format of most online travel sites, with profiles listing star rating, amenities, guest ratings and nightly price. While car rentals are limited to airport pick up and drop off locations, you can opt to pick up a car at one airport and drop it off on the other side of the country. You can choose from a range of vehicle types from, compact to luxury classes.
CheapAir does have some helpful extra features available. Among them are travel deals, fare tracker and the flight status checker. We like that you can check your flight status without signing into an account, so even if you aren’t flying, you can check the status of a loved one’s flight before they arrive. The fare tracker is a handy tool that sends you emails when prices are at their lowest for flight routes you want to watch. These features are handy, but not without some quirks. Travel deals are available on a month-to-month basis, but the site only shows deals for the current month and before.
Of the online travel sites we encountered, CheapAir is one of the easiest to use. Helpful popup guides show you how to navigate the flight and hotel searches. The layout is spacious and is free of ads that can clutter a website. However, you won’t be able to book vacation packages with multiple reservations for one price. If you want to book a hotel and flight via CheapAir, you’ll have to pay for each separately.