Vayama vs KAYAK vs Expedia: Pricing, Features, Policies & Customer Service Compared

It pays to hunt around these days before making final choices about airfare. Here’s a comparison between some major sites you can use to find airfare.

Vayama

Vayama has a lot of deals going to Asia, South America, and all over the world on a daily basis. It’s best to use the email newsletter to stay on top of new ones so you can jump on them if that’s your thing.

Features

• A+ BBB Rating-Vayama has the highest rating from the BBB from the Better Business Bureau chapter around Santa Clara. They had 230 complaints but closed them all in the last 3 years.
• Daily Travel Deals-If you click on the green subscribe button in the left part of the site, you can get deals sent to your inbox daily.
• 24/7 Support-If you hit the contact link at the bottom of the site, you’ll see info for 24/7 phone support. You can also hit email links here for support and feedback as well.
• Online Check-in-You can hit this link right next to “Flights” on the main page to check into your seat through the Vayama page.

Kayak

Kayak has a lot of options for bargain hunting on their site, such as their comparison feature. If you like doing a lot of research to find the best rates, this will often be an excellent site for your needs.

Features

• Save All Searches-If you register for the site, you can access all of your old searches which can be useful if you’re trying to remember where you were thinking about going before.
• Compare Kayak Vs, Other Sites-Kayak actually  lets you list the fares for other sites right on Kayak’s own page, which is convenient. It also shows that they are pretty confident about their rates. You can compare with Priceline, Despegar,Farebook, Airfare.com, and other services depending on where you’re going.
• Hacker Deals-These deals refer to when you buy a ticket from one airline and then a connecting flight from another in order to get the lowest rate. Kayak is a good source for finding them.

Expedia

Expedia lets you bundle services together in order to pay less for them. You can search for “Flight + hotel + car” on the main site, for example, by hitting the icon that has the plan, building and car. The site works with more than 400 airlines.

Features-

• Track Deal Changes-You can track pricing and availability 24/7 through the “Track Changes” feature on Expedia.
• Bundles-By having the site also looking for available hotels and cars in addition to flights for the area that you’re headed, you can save money when you buy all of these things together. There are also advanced options like adding extra hotels or cars if you’re travelling in large groups.
• No Fee Through Expedia for Cancellation-Expedia won’t charge you a fee for cancelling reservations for flights or other services. This doesn’t mean that those services themselves won’t charge you, however.

Head to Head

Pricing and Features

An example of pricing through Vayama is their daily tips to Ecuador that go for a little over $500. This is for a Miami to Quito round trip. These deals tend to change around randomly, however. The site has an email feature for getting them sent to you so you can be in the lead for getting them. Many of their features are focused on random deals.

Kayak gets prices as low as $549 for abrupt flights from Miami to Quito in Ecuador, round trip. This is even when they aren’t on sale. Many of the best features on the site are designed to help you bargain hunt for airlines with the lowest fare. Once you do a flight search on the main page, you can select which services to use for comparison, such as also listing Priceline flights in addition to those offered through Kayak.

Round trips through Expedia from Miami to Quito in Ecuador, for example, might cost around $700. If you bundle this with a car, though, then the price is $200 less than it would be otherwise. This is the main feature that the site offers, bundling services together. After all, if you’re going to find a flight to a particular city and stay there for more than a day or two, chances are reasonable that you’ll want a hotel and maybe even a car when you’re there. The site also has ratings for each flight out of 10. The Ecuador flight is listed as a “fair flight” with 5.4 out of 10, and it’s listed in green for easy comparison.

Policies and Customer Service

 There are some negative reviews online for Vayama in terms of customer service. This is mostly about confusion between Vayama and the airlines regarding fees. They do feature a 24/7 phone and email support service as well. One important policy Vayama has is that it’s separate from the airlines and other providers. So they don’t tend to give out refunds due to delays. If you want to change or cancel your airfare, then the fee can be as much as $100 per person. This happens even if you do it within 24 hours of getting your confirmation for booking. So it’s not a good service to use if you are uncertain about your trip.

 The policies for Kayak mostly mention how if they combine tickets from different airlines, you may only be able to refund one of them, since the other isn’t under any obligation to give you your money back if one of the airlines cancels. The site also has similar information about distancing themselves from the airlines. Customer service options are listed through the “Help” link on the page. This is mostly for checking and reporting price accuracy though. Most customer service has to go through the original airline. This is important to remember.

Expedia makes a note to say that it’s their policy to not charge fees for cancellation of flights, but it’s important to note that the flights themselves might do this, so reading the fine print is paramount.