Kayak.com

Are you looking to travel soon? Planning on using your favorite travel site to help? You can probably save some serious bucks if you do. But before you do, give one site a chance that you might not have heard of.

It's today's FamilyFirst site: kayak.com.

No, it's not about kayaks. It's about finding the very best rates for your airfare, hotels, rental cars, and entire packages.

Kayak will search through all of the companies out there offering their services, including more budget-minded ones like JetBlue and Southwest that other travel services tend to skip over (less commissions, you know).

Once you get your search results, it will also tell you about cheaper results just outside your search parameters. For instance, when I asked about flying from my nearby airport of XNA to Tampa, it found me a ticket for 40% less if I drive forty miles to Joplin, Missouri. Sweet!

It also has a slick filtering feature that allows you to narrow your results using slider bars, for example flight times, airlines, nearby airports and hotel chains, and the number of stops you're willing to make.

If you use AOL Instant Messenger, you can send a basic message (for example, "fly XNA 4/6 to TPA 4/13") to KayakBot, an IMbot that will respond with a short list of options and a personalized search link.

So the next time you travel, give kayak a shot. I'll bet you save some bucks.

http://www.kayak.com/

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