Once upon a time, buying holidays meant that you had to go to a high street travel agent, and the person behind the counter was the only person from which you could get information and prices. Over the past ten years or so, however, there have been fundamental changes to this industry which has meant customers have much more control about what holiday they choose, and where they get the information from; it is often just a click away.

First of all there were online travel agents which allowed you to search for your own holidays, and often undercut the prices of the high street retailers due to the reduced running costs and the fact that there was no one earning commission on your purchase. However, any given web based travel agent is not guaranteed to offer the best price, and that’s where online comparison websites come in.

Online holiday comparison websites use the same technology as search engines like Google to allow you to search for the kind of holiday you want, throwing up relevant options from amongst many, if not all, travel agents websites. The features of the holiday, like the dates and the destination, are now not the only thing the customer has control of: you now, to some extent, have control over the price. Amongst these search engines, however, there are better and worse, the better ones finding those remote and one of cheap options more consistently.

When it comes to comparing prices and finding deals Skyscanner and Momondo are perhaps the cream of the crop. They will find holidays sometimes up to 30 cheaper than rival websites. To absolutely make sure you don’t miss any great deals, however, it is often best to search in several comparison websites and compare those results.

Another final piece of advice for finding the best deals using holiday comparison websites is to be flexible about the holiday you end up with. Though these websites will help you find cheaper than usual deals, you will rarely find a holiday that matches all of the features you intend. If you just come to them with a loose plan of what you want, then you will find even cheaper deals with slight variations in the details of the plan.

Are you looking for holiday deals?