Best and worst travel comparison websites, and the cheapest

Travel comparison websites such as Skyscanner and TripAdvisor can save you a lot of legwork by trawling the market for the best airfares and cheapest price on hotel rooms. But with more comparison sites than ever before, which is the easiest to use and which really has the cheapest fares? 

We asked thousands of people who used travel comparison websites to tell us about everything from whether the prices displayed matched the final price paid to how easy it was to use the website. We also carried out snapshot research into prices, to find out which comparison website reliability returned the cheapest flights and accommodation prices.

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What you need to know before you book through a comparison site

A comparison site is only the beginning of your holiday-booking journey. After finding the best price, you'll be directed through to an online travel agent to actually buy your flights and accommodation.

Before you book, check the results of our best flight booking websites and best hotel booking websites, to make sure you choose a company you can trust. Remember, the company that takes your payment is the company that will be responsible for refunding you if things go wrong and your holiday is cancelled.

Travel comparison websites rated

In the table below, we've rated seven leading travel comparison websites, including TripAdvisor, Skyscanner and Kayak, to help you research your next holiday with confidence. For more unbiased reviews and independent advice, find out more about Which? Travel.

Travel comparison websites reviewed

For the first time since we started rating comparison sites, Skyscanner has company at the top of the table. Both Google Flights (airfares only) and Kayak (flight and hotel prices) equalled its customer score. However, no company scored highly enough with users to be crowned a Which? Recommended Provider (WRP).

Skyscanner

It’s no surprise to see Skyscanner (joint) top of our comparison sites table. It’s been there for the past five years, thanks to competitive prices, impressive market coverage and genuinely useful features. 

The speed that it introduced filters for flexible airfares and its greener flights filter, which shows you flights with lower CO2 emissions, is brilliant. 

It also came top of our snapshot price research - finding the best airfares more times than any other comparison site.

Which? verdict: Make Skyscanner your first – but not only – port of call when searching for flights. 

Compare flights on Skyscanner

Kayak

Kayak matched Skyscanner for market coverage, meaning it should have nearly all the airline and hotel providers you’d expect. And - like all three sites at the top of our table - it has genuinely useful features; including price alerts, which track fares and notify you if the price of a particular flight drops. Better still, it allows you to filter out sites you don’t trust when searching for deals. 

Which? verdict: An easy-to-use site and a good starting point for finding flights and hotels.

Check prices on Kayak

Google Flights

Usersfound the site easy to use and were happy with the relevance of search results - giving it four stars in this category. Like Skyscanner, Google Flights also flags airlines with the highest CO2 emissions for each route. It even provides you with a CO2 estimate - however, some climate experts have questioned whether the calculations accurately reflect the true impact on the environment. It also found the cheapest fares four out of ten times in our checks.

Which? verdict: A good alternative to Skyscanner. Just take its CO2 estimates with a pinch of salt.

Find airfares on Google Flights

TripAdvisor

TripAdvisor calls itself the world’s largest travel platform, but it’s at risk of becoming a jack of all trades, master of none. It could only muster a middling three stars out of five in most of the categories in our survey, including site functionality and relevance of search results. 

However, despite you rating it just two stars for its rates, in our checks it found the best hotel price six times out of 10. 

Which? verdict:  A useful travel resource, but previous Which? research has found you can't always trust the reviews.

Browse accommodation prices on Tripadvisor.

Which flight comparison site found the cheapest airfares?

Skyscanner found the cheapest flight prices on six of the 11 routes we looked at. The catch? As with other comparison sites, the cheapest prices are often with online travel agents (OTAs) you shouldn’t book with. 

Many offer a poor customer experience, and if you need extras such as luggage, you might pay way over the odds.

Comparison sites: holiday refunds and cancellations

Comparison sites will mostly direct you to book through OTAs and, generally, these sites offer poor customer service. 

Lots of Which? members contact us about problems with refunds for cancelled flights – with many waiting months for their money and unable to contact firms who often refuse to provide a phone number. Booking with an OTA can also complicate and delay the refund process. Some OTAs, such as Opodo and TravelUp, have the nerve to try and charge a refund processing fee – even though you can always claim a free refund from the airline for a cancelled flight (in the EU/UK). 

How we research travel comparison sites

In October 2022, we asked 3,169 Which? members to tell us about their experiences of researching holidays online in the past two years. We only reported on companies and star rating categories when we received at least 30 responses. We also compared rates for 11 flight routes and 10 hotels on major OTAs and comparison sites.

You can have your say on what we research and help us achieve change by joining Which? Connect.