Travel Tips

Travel Tip: New Travel Booking Sites

hotel-signOnce again, another batch of travel booking sites has appeared on the World Wide Web, so it’s time to figure out which ones have legs, and which ones have a ways to go.

One new site, called Hotelicopter.com, is a helpful meta-search engine for hotels. It collects hotel room rate information from more than 30 online sites, including old standbys like Hotels.com and Orbitz, so travelers can figure out which source offers the lowest rates.

There’s another new hotel booking site called AboutAnywhere.com, but with a different model. It works with hotels to cut out the middle-man, and directs you to the hotel to book your stay. The good news is there are no booking fees.

But there’s also no guarantee that you’re getting the lowest price.

Then there are similar sites for car rentals. Rentalcars.com, which is owned by Priceline, searches from several company sites like Hertz and Enterprise, and shows the best rates.

It has a helpful filter so you can focus on specific types of cars or price ranges.

Not bad, but there are no bells and whistles to distinguish it from other rental-car sites.

And then there’s a site called OpTrip.com, which searches flights, hotels and car rentals.

It’s still in testing, which means limited services, but this one has promise—with integrated maps and direct booking on the site.

Find more money-saving tips in our Budget Travel section.

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