I know most of you all ready follow this adivice but I thought I'd post it anyway. Just in case there's a newbie out there cruising through and reading our advice.

Most of the time, I'll spin my wheels checking several sites before purchasing airline tickets. As a general rule I find the price to be identical on every site. Every once in a while there will be a difference of a couple of dollars or I'll see a fare to good to pass up and purchase without checking other sites.

A couple of days ago, the exception to the rule raised it's head in a BIG way. One I found almost to be to much to believe.

I was searching for airfare to Vancouver, BC for a trip next year. I had known that the best price I had seen in the past was a little under $400 before taxes.

My first stop is always Travelocity, which had a good fare on America West for $479, including taxes. A good fare but not the lowest I've seen so I was willing to wait.

Next stop was Expedia. Expedia wasn't showing the AW flight but had others starting at $520. I went on.

The third stop was Orbitz, a site I've never had any luck on at all but still check, just because. Orbitz had several flights for $420 total plus a $5 service charge per ticket on American Airlines with great flight times for my needs. I couldn't believe it! This was almost as low as I'd ever seen this route in the last year and here it was the first time I was looking through, on the dates we wanted to fly, which included a Friday departure and a Sunday return. It's rare I get close to the lowest price I've seen on a route with a Friday departure and a Sunday return.

So of course I go to American Airlines own web site to see if there might be a discount for purchasing directly from them or if maybe I could get bonus FF miles for the same price. I almost fell off my chair. AA wanted $590 for the cheapest flight on their own site! No discount and any bonus FF miles they might have been offering wouldn't have mattered anyway.

I checked all sites one more time since there was such a discrepancy between all the sites. Of course, I ended up purchasing the tickets on Orbitz. The first tickets I've ever purchased from them.

Normally, this habit of checking all sites only wastes time and results in finding the exact same price on every site. This time it paid off in better flight times than the AW flight offered by Travelocity and a savings of over $100 per ticket over Expedia and AA own web site.

Travelocity, Expedia, and Orbitz aren't the only sites I check but are the largest sites I check on a regular basis. I had also checked with Qixo and Hotwire and a couple of other minor sites as well. Hotwire was offering a flight for $409 total. Not nearly enough savings to warrant the extra night I'd have had to spend on s hotel to make sure I was were in needed to be at the time I needed to be there.
If you're not in the habit of checking more that one travel site before booking, you should be. If you've gotten out of the habit because you always find the same thing, get back into it. If you'd never thought of checking more than one site, you need to really think about it.