At the New York Times Travel Show a few weeks ago, I was reminded of the airfare search site, Momondo. I’d written a blog post about the best websites to find cheap airfare about a year ago with a short blurb about Momondo but hadn’t used it recently. As you know, I mostly use miles and points for award travel so searching for cheap flights hasn’t been part of my recent travel planning.
But, Reid Bramblett of Reids Guides caught my attention when he said he’d done test after test of online airfare sites and Momondo came up with the cheapest fare 95% of the time!
Whoa! Momondo’s success rate was just too good to ignore.
I know some of you have never heard of Momondo and you’re asking why not use one of the major online booking sites like Orbitz. Before, diving into the reasons why you need to be using Momondo and how to use it, let’s first take a look at the more well-known sites for booking airfare.
Why not use an online booking site to find the cheapest airfare?
Have you priced and booked airfare using an online booking site like Expedia, Travelocity, or Orbitz? Did you feel good about the price you got because you compared all 3 sites?
Did you know Expedia owns both Travelocity and Orbitz?
The sites you use for booking travel may not be all that they seem. In fact, over the past couple of years, many smaller online travel booking sites have been acquired by large companies. In addition to Travelocity and Orbitz, Expedia owns CarRentals.com, Hotwire, CheapTickets, Trivago, Venere.com, and Hotels.com.
Add to that Priceline, the popular online bidding travel booking site, also owns Kayak, OpenTable, rentalcars.com, Booking.com, and Agoda.
The point is, you may think you’ve done your homework by searching across different sites, but the truth is you’ve probably been looking at sites all owned by either Priceline or Expedia, making the prices not as competitive as you might imagine.
This doesn’t mean sites like Expedia, Priceline, or their brands can’t find cheap airfare, but rather a more comprehensive search should be done before you take that credit card out!
So, where does Momondo fit into all of this?
5 Reasons Why You Need to Know Momondo for Cheap Airfare
1. Momondo is an independent aggregator that searches for the best airfare across the web.
2. Momondo searches over 600 airlines, online booking sites, travel agencies, search engines, and other online travel discount sites.
3. More than 600 sources is double and, in some cases, triple the number of sources used by typical booking sites.
4. Unlike many online booking sites, Momondo includes small, budget airlines and lesser-known airlines as it works to find the lowest airfare.
5. Oh yeah, and in test after test, it came up with the cheapest airfare 95% of the time!
Ready to see how you can use Momondo to find cheap airfare?
TIP: Remember to use an incognito window for searching or clear your browser’s cache after searching to avoid price increases!
You can do a basic airfare search with Momondo just as you would on most sites.
Enter your departure and arrival airports, along with the dates and number of passengers. Just under this information, you’ll find drop down menus to select your trip type, ticket class, whether you’d like to only search for nonstop flights only, and if you’d like Momondo to search nearby airports.
Momondo will display the results on a screen like this one. The bar graph at the top shows your selected dates in yellow and the prices for dates close to yours in blue. You can immediately see whether your departure and arrival dates are the cheapest options. If you click on a blue bar, your results will be refreshed with the new dates.
Momondo also shows the cheapest, quickest, and best options in the pink bar just above the flight results. Clicking on any of these will bring the flight details to the top of the results.
Another handy customization feature is the “Ticket Builder” option on the blue button just above the cheapest, quickest, and best options. This allows you to select which outbound and inbound flights you’d like to create your own itinerary. The prices for each leg are shown, as well as the duration and Momondo’s 1-10 happiness rating.
The orange “Fare Alert” button allows you to sign up or log in to get updates about price changes.
Along the left side of the results, you’ll see filters you can apply in order to refine your results. I like the filter by airline alliance, which is helpful when trying to earn frequent flyer miles in a particular loyalty program.
Back at the top of the page, above the blue and yellow bar graph, on the right side, you’ll notice a “Flight Insight” option for your selected route. Click on this and be prepared to be seriously WOWED! (Or maybe I’m just a flight-search nerd!)
Momondo displays an overview of information about your route and the factors that affect the price. By selecting the tabs along the top, Airline, Seasonality, Days to Departure, Airport, Day of Week, and Time of Day, you’ll see a separate breakdown of these price factors.
You’ll learn how far in advance you should book your flight for the best price, which months are the cheapest or the most expensive, and which airlines tend to offer the lowest prices for your route.
When you’re ready to book, click the green “Go To Site” button. Momondo will open a new window and take you to the booking site to complete your purchase. Be sure to use a card like the Chase Sapphire Preferred to get 2x the points for travel purchases.
One last fun feature to highlight about Momondo is its “Trip Finder” search. Scroll down on the homepage or select “Trip Finder” from the navigation bar. You can set a budget and search by destination type, continent, or month. Momondo will inspire you with a variety of trip results!
By using independent aggregator site Momondo instead of a standard online booking site, you’ll feel confident about the price you paid for your airfare!
Have you used Momondo to find cheap airfare?
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Checked it out. It gives better or same fee. Will bookmark it. Thanks.
Thanks, Marc! Hope it proves useful for you!
I used momondo for moving around Europe, it really helped.
Fantastic, Karla! It’s so good to have firsthand accounts of how Momondo helped!
Very interesting. I’ve never heard of that site. For me, I’ve always blanketed the search with the biggest search engines out and have managed to save a few dollars here and there.
Thanks for your comment, Milosz. Definitely give Momondo a try. The fact that it’s independent could just help you save even more than some of the bigger sites.
I use momondo and love it! Quite often them and google flights have the cheapest flights for me!
That’s great, Anita! Google flight is also a great tool! Glad you’re finding flights for less!?
Aw! I never heard of it. Thanks for the heads up. I am already booked till May so I’ll check Momondo out for my future flight bookings.
Awesome, Jem! I’m sure you’ll find some great prices on Flights.
Completely agree with you on Momondo! I learned of it last year, before our trip to Europe and they did have the cheapest flights! I also like their web design, and the ease of switching the dates to see which flights would be cheaper.
That’s great, Jolanta! So true about the web design. It’s smart and so user friendly.
Thanks for the interesting information a lot to think about. I didn’t know that Expedia and Priceline own most of the travel websites. But I find that skyscanner finds some good deals also.
You are so right about Skyscanner. It’s a close 2nd to Momondo for sure. Hope using Momondo will find you some cheap flights!
I always use Momondo. It really is the best! So user friendly too.
You are so right, Laura! The design and functions are so user friendly. Glad it’s been a good tool for you. 🙂
You have to be careful when using this site. (and others) It /they may tell you that the cheapest flight is through a little-known aggregator which may have problems. (Skyscanner does this too)
I tried one test reservation, was directed to Omega Flight Store, then searched for reviews on Omega and was appalled at its terrible reviews for service. Also, I found the same flight at the airline for a few dollars less than Omega.
(I have not actually used Omega, or Momondo in booking a flight. Recently, I’ve been using ITA Matrix, Skyscanner, & Google Flights to search for paid flights, and Expertflyer (paid) to search for miles-flights)
Thanks for adding to this resource, JAS. Totally agree that you have to pay attention to tiny flight booking sites that may have different T&C’s than larger sites. I’ve also used ITA Matrix, Google Flights, and ExpertFlyer and found them all to be useful tools. While I have used Skyscanner successfully as well, they are an aggregator just like Momondo and the same heads up about little-known booking sites applies.
Hi. I’m a bit frustrated – Could not find “Flight Insight” as mentioned above.
Matilda
Hi Matilda, thanks for your comment. I’m frustrated, too! I’ve checked for Momondo’s Flight Insights and couldn’t find them either. They must have made some updates. I’m sad to see those go, though, because they were helpful. I’ll update this post accordingly. As an alternative, try the Hopper app. They have a similar feature for giving you tips about the best times to book. Good luck!