Disclaimer: I work at Kiwi.com.

At https://kiwi.com we combine flights ourselves instead of just taking the combinations from the big guys, you should try it out with a few queries. Not being limited to airline agreements when connecting flights can really drive the price down or make obscure routes viable.

Who protects the consumer when weather or FAA traffic management makes you miss your connecting flight?

Glad you asked. We do: https://www.kiwi.com/us/content/guarantee

Apparently the rewrite of this dry wall of text is not live yet, so let me paraphrase:

You contact us and we book you the flight that gets you to your destination the earliest (if needed we pay for a taxi or bus or anything to get you to another airport if needed.)

> In the case that we are unable to find a reasonable alternative flight(s) or other means of transportation, due to a disproportionate price difference between the potential alternative transportation and the original price for the unused flights, we may agree with you on our proportional contribution to the costs associated with a mutually agreed upon alternative transportation.

This doesn't sound like a 100% guarantee. Most of the times on the day tickets will be a lot more expensive than advance purchases.

Alright, this following comment is not an official communication by Kiwi.com, it reflects solely my personal guesses/opinions.

I'm not sure about the details since I don't have much to do with the legal side of things, but I would assume that Kiwi.com had to put this clause in to avoid having to pay when a flight's price is 1000x higher than it should be as an error fare, or similar cases. I've personally never heard of a case where expenses weren't fully covered because of this clause.

Obviously adequate connection time between flights is an important factor. Especially important if you're traveling with kids.

A 4 hour weather delay will blow away anything I might consider an adequate connection time under normal conditions, so the question seems quite important.

See reply two levels above .-.

Google Flights. I fly 3-4 times per month and it's godsend.

Google flights or matrix.itasoftware.com (you can't book here though)

I use this userscript to book directly from ITA matrix:

https://github.com/SteppoFF/ita-matrix-powertools

I also use google flights but I thought google flights was created after Google acquired ITA software. Isn't it ITA's backend behind google.com/flights?

Yes.

Google Flights is simply a pretty UI around matrix.itasoftware.com, no?

The matrix has nice features like flexible dates on a multi-leg trip that Google Flights doesn't offer.

Google Flights has gradually added ITA Matrix stuff over time.

You can nerd out a lot more with Ita about specific routing and airlines

bookwithmatrix.com

Disclaimer: I created Concorde.

Concorde — Discover cheap flights to hundreds of destinations worldwide: https://concorde.io

Interesting. Played around with it. -What does creating an account provide? -Do you plan on allowing for filters by price, airline and alliance? -Do you pull in deals similar to what is in Flyertalk's Mileage Run forums since many are time limited there? -I'll be checking it for my next flight now. :)

Thanks for checking it out!

1. By creating an account, you can search from your home airport to hundreds of destinations worldwide. 2. Yes, the filters you propose are very achievable in the near-term, meaning that I already have the data, I just need to create the appropriate front-end for viewing it. 3. Exactly. The quality of the deal is intended to be mileage-run worthy, but not necessarily everyone wants to earn miles. I've found a lot of people just want a cheap and fun vacation spot that is somewhere far from home.

Please let me know if you have any thoughts or suggestions for improvement! Thanks!

You mention mileage runs, but is there an option to only receive email alerts about cheap airfare for a particular airline?

Currently the email notifications are triggered based on your home airport. If we post a deal from one of your home airports, we send you an email. However, as I continue to develop the site, I intend to offer more granular settings for receiving email notifications, similar to more granular settings for the Discovery results as well.

I've been using Kayak recently and have found it to be very good.

Relied on their price forecasting tip on one flight the other month. It advised waiting until the last few days to buy, and that paid off.

I used to use Hipmunk for the graphical view, but mainly use Google flights now. It's super fast, and it is more easily viewed on my phone.

momondo.com is the best I found. Not sure how it works for US flights though, since I mostly fly in Europe.

ITA Matrix.