I love getting the best deal on a flight as much as the next guy, but with so many cheap flight search engines out there, it’s hard to know which one to use. So I decided I’d catalog all the search engines I could find, and see what they had to offer, so that the next time I want or need a specific option, I’ll know which travel search engine to use. As a result…

I spent a number of hours searching the web for all the travel search engines I could find. After compiling the list of all the search engines I found, I went through the list one by one and performed a search on the site to see how the search engine would perform. After weeding out all the search engines that required that I select at least one other site before they would perform the search, which resulted in popups appearing all over the screen, I was left with this list of 30 flight search engines.

I then performed another few test searches with different departure and arrival cities to see if there were any limiting requirements. Based on those follow up tests, it appears that Priceline.com and Statravel.com require that the flight must depart out of the USA in order for the search to be completed.

Finally I performed another test or two on the remaining 30 travel engines and took note of the various advanced search options available prior to completing the search as well as the advanced filter options available after the search had completed. In some cases a tab or link needs to be pressed in order for the advanced options or filters to be made available, but in neither case is an additional search required for the information requested to be displayed.

The charts below represent about 50 plus hours of research, so I hope they help you find the cheap flight or vacation you want.

A couple of other things to take note of: StaTravel.com is geared towards discounted travel for students, teachers, and those under 26, the only unfortunate thing is that it requires departure out of the USA; If you’re just starting your search, and know you want to go to a certain country but don’t know where the airports are located in that country, Wego.com offers a drop down list of available airports when you enter a country; and lastly for those outside of Europe, Europebyair.com has their flagship FlightPass program that lets you book one way tickets for $99 and premium tickets for $129 with over 20 airlines taking part to over 500 cities in Europe.