Kayak
2 comparisons available
About Kayak
Kayak is a meta-search engine for travel, founded in 2004 and acquired by Booking Holdings (parent of Booking.com, Priceline) in 2013 for $1.8 billion. Unlike Expedia or Booking.com (which are OTAs that book travel directly), Kayak aggregates results from hundreds of OTAs, airlines, and hotels in a single search — then redirects users to the booking partner of their choice. Kayak's strength is finding the lowest price across multiple sources without users needing to check each one individually. Features include: Price Forecast (predicts whether prices will rise or fall), Price Alerts, Hacker Fares (combine flights from different airlines for a one-way each direction), Explore (find destinations within budget from your departure city), and Trip Planning. Kayak doesn't book travel itself — final booking happens on the partner site (Expedia, Booking.com, Priceline, airline direct, etc.).
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Kayak or Google Flights better?
Google Flights is faster, has a cleaner interface, no ads, and excellent flexible date/destination tools. Kayak has more comprehensive coverage of OTAs (Expedia, Priceline, Booking.com), Hacker Fares (mix one-way flights from different airlines), Price Forecast predictions, and hotel/car/package search alongside flights. For pure flight search: Google Flights is more efficient. For cross-OTA price comparison and trip planning: Kayak is more thorough. Many travelers use both — Google Flights to identify the best option, then Kayak to verify or find OTA discounts.
Does Kayak charge fees?
Kayak itself charges no fees — it's free to use. When you book through Kayak, you're redirected to a partner (airline, OTA, hotel) and pay them directly. Some partner sites have booking fees, but Kayak displays the all-in price clearly so you can compare apples-to-apples. Kayak earns revenue through advertising and small commissions from booking partners. The user-facing service remains free with no booking fees added by Kayak.