Kayak is reliable – Is it safe to buy in Kayak?

kayaking is one of many websites out there to help you find the best travel deals.

However, unlike other popular OTAs (Online Travel Agencies) with which Kayak is often grouped, Kayak is not an OTA – it is a metasearch engine for travel deals.

💡 Spoiler: Find free tours in any city with Civitatis

Kayak shows you prices from other websites and sends you to that website to complete your reservation.

Also, with tools like Flight Tracker, Guides and Kayak Trips, this site acts as a travel planning assistant

You can research and organize all aspects of your trip in one place.

That all sounds great, right? But how does Kayak work!

In this post I present everything you need to know to know how it works and if Kayak is reliable and safe to book.

In general, Searching for Kayak trips is easy as long as you know some simple tips and tricks to find the best deals and Cheaper flights and hotels.

This guide will show you everything you need to know to use Kayak to find and book your next trip.

HERE The best TIPS to find the cheapest flights on Google Flights or Google Flights

Is kayaking reliable?

Instead of researching numerous websites, KAYAK's sophisticated analytics present you with offers that match your needs and preferences.

KAYAK is reliable because it constantly updates the offers and it has a completely secure payment system with the companies and tours that appear in the search engine.

Any problem you have you can contact them and they provide excellent customer service.

Once you find a good deal, KAYAK redirects you to book directly with the airline, car dealer, hotel or third-party travel site.

Of course the payment methods on these sites are reliable and secure at 100%. You will never lose your money booking in Kayak.

In order to present interesting and reliable travel information to its users, KAYAK uses the following tools:

price predictor
price alerts
Hi-tech software to load fast results.
dynamic maps

Is it safe to buy in Kayak? Why is KAYAK so cheap?

It is safe to buy in Kayak, it is a reliable website and efficient for plan a vacation with great deals Travel.

Sometimes skepticism sets in when we find a really good deal. We ask ourselves: What is the catch? What is the profit?

With KAYAK there is no cheating. The services are designed to be affordable, but above all, honest.

To keep the deals sweet and affordable, KAYAK does not charge fees to its users.

Instead, heThe benefits are obtained by the advertisements and by the providers.

every time a user books through KAYAK, the provider pays a commission. KAYAK is an established business that has more than 700 supplier partnerships.

Recommended flights and popular destinations. How does kayaking work?

On the home page, Kayak displays its "Recommendations" and routes to "Popular Destinations" based on your hometown, all before you start your first search.

These sections are for very specific flights and dates, so they may not be very helpful if you're looking for a certain itinerary.

However, if you're flexible, these sections offer some great deals.

For example, I've found flights for as little as $79 round-trip from my home airport to popular destinations like Orlando and Myrtle Beach.

I also found a return ticket from my airport to Dublin (Ireland) for only €648.

Many of these deals are for flights as close as 2 weeks away, so if you're looking for a last minute travel deal, Kayak is a great place to start your search.

Advice: You can change the origin city of your Recommended Flights and Popular Destinations by doing a flight search with the new city as the origin.

walkthrough cHow to find a flight in Kayak

To start your search in kayaking, enter your city of departure, your city of arrival and the dates; then press “Search” just like you would on any other website.

This will take you to the next page, which displays a list of available flights.

This is the main reservation page and includes a lot of information.

By default, the results will be auto-populated sorted by "Recommended"

You can adjust this setting to sort by “Cheapest”, “Fastest”, “Earlier Takeoff”, “Later Takeoff”, “Earlier Landing”, or “Later Landing”.

To do this, you just have to select how you want to sort the results using the dropdown menu located at the top right of the screen, below the main search bar.

Look at this Super detailed guide on how to find the cheapest flights on Skyscanner

rate wizard

This is a great function that allows you to include baggage fees in the price you are viewing.

Since baggage fees can vary between airlines, it's a great way to see a true cost comparison without having to look up each airline's baggage fee policy separately.

Our advice

this little box at the top left of your screen gives you Kayak's best estimate of how prices might change in the next week.

The box will tell you if it is a good time to buy, or if you should wait.

This estimate is for the following week only, so I recommend that you take his advice with a grain of salt.

If you activate the “Track prices” option, you can create a personalized price alert for your itinerary.

This requires an email address and automatically creates a Kayak account for you.

As you see in the image above the search engine also shows you the best and cheapest offer.

booking preferences

In the frame «Our advice», located on the left side of your screen, you can go into a lot of detail about your flight preferences.

Customize your list of available flights using any of the filter options below:

• Number of stops
• Time
• Duration
• airports
• Airlines
• alliance
• booking sites
• Cabin
• flight quality
• Stopover airports
• Planes
• Price

Compare Sites vs. kayaking

On the right hand side of your screen, you will see this chart where you can compare what you find on Kayak with numerous online travel agencies and travel websites.

If you click the "Compare" button, you will go directly to the chosen website and automatically search for your itinerary.

Search for flights and complete your reservation

In the central section of the page you will find the flights available for the route you have chosen.

Click on "See offer" to see more information about the flights and complete your purchase.

Depending on the route you choose, the "View Deal" button will take you to the airline's website, Kayak's booking tool, or another OTA like Expedia or Orbitz to complete your purchase.

You will be able to see where the reservation is from just above the orange button.

On some flights, there is more than one booking option, but luckily Kayak presents the lowest price option first.

To view other options for the flight you've chosen, click the down arrow next to the orange View Offer button.

This will show a dropdown box with all the prices on different websites.

Please note that this is not available for all flights.

The most important Kayak is not an online travel agency, but a travel search engine.

Hacker Rates

On some flights, instead of seeing the airline below the price, you'll see "Hacker Fare."

Don't worry, nothing is being hacked and these prices are totally correct

All of this means that Kayak has found a great deal on a flight by bundling 2 one-way tickets (usually on different airlines) rather than one airline round-trip.

This can be a good way to get the best deals.

The only thing to keep in mind with these Hacker Fees is that you have a little less protection if something goes wrong.

Let's say you're going to Chicago for a long weekend, but bad weather cancels your outbound flight.

Since it was a short trip, you decide to cancel everything.

If you had a return ticket, you would have a much better advantage in getting reimbursed for the second part of the trip.

But since you booked a Hacker fare, your return flight is a one-way flight on a different airline, which means that return flight has no real connection to your outbound flight.

It would be difficult to get a refund for the second leg of your trip; as far as the airline is concerned, it is an independent flight.

Although this is a rather rare situation, it is good to keep it in mind if you buy a flight with a Hacker fare.

→ GetYourGuide everything you need to know about this portal to book tours and activities ←

Search for a flight by destination

Another way to search for flights in Kayak It's at the bottom of the home page, where you will see a number of popular cities.

Click on “Flights” directly under the city name to bring up a page showing many flight deals from your home airport to your chosen destination.

All of them are for specific dates, so again, flexibility is the key for this tool to work for you. to find cheap flights.

Kayak Explore

This is a cool feature that is a bit hard to find.

In the top menu, click the dropdown box for the “More” tab, then click Explore.

With this tool, you can select your origin airport, date range, price range, and trip duration to see where you can fly within those parameters.

It's a fun way to choose a destination when you have an idea of when you would like to travel but you are not sure where do you want to go.

If you hover your mouse over the price box on the map, you can see which city the flight arrives at.

Once you have found your destination, click on the city name and then click on “Search flights” on the right hand side to choose your flights and complete the booking.

You can also use the Kayak Explore tool to search for a themed trip, such as Amazing Beaches, Family Cities, UNESCO Sites or Hiking Sights.

After choosing your airport of origin, dates, price range and travel time, choose the theme of your trip on the right side of the page.

This will limit your search to only destinations with the theme you have chosen.

Search with flexible dates

Sometimes having a day or two of leeway in your travel plans can save you a lot of money. Using the flexible 3-day search tool, you can view selected travel dates plus or minus 3 days.

It's a great way to see if you can save some money with a little flexibility.

To use this feature, select "Flexible Dates +/-" on the left side of the calendar dropdown box. You can also choose a flex-weekend or flex-month search.

Now, when you click the Search button, you'll see a price chart so you can easily see the cheapest days to fly to your chosen destination.

Fashion Tip: Even a day or two of flexibility can add up to big savings. Be sure to search for your trip with flexible dates to see your best options.

Direct Kayak

This is a cool page found in the “More” dropdown on the main menu. Click here to see all the places you can fly to directly from your home airport.

This tool also shows the approximate flight time, distance, and airlines that fly the specific route.

It is a very useful tool if you are looking for a destination that you can fly to without making a stopover. Read on to find out more about how Kayak works.

Book through Kayak

Occasionally it will appear that the flight you have chosen can be booked through kayaking; this will appear as a Kayak price.

however, though it seems that that you're booking through Kayak, you're really just using Kayak as a user interface – the booking is actually through a third party (usually an online travel agency like Travelocity or Priceline).

This is important to know: if you have any problems, you will need to contact the party you booked through, not Kayak. In this case, the ticket was booked through Priceline, even though the user did not click through to that website.

Searching for a good hotel on KAYAK is really easy. First, choose "Hotels" in the top menu. Next, enter the number of rooms, the number of guests, the city and the dates you are looking for; click the magnifying glass icon to search.

On the left side of the page, you will see all the options to filter your search.

You can narrow the results by stars, review score, price, free, location, neighborhood, amenities, atmosphere, and type of property.

Right above all the search options is a box to click on a map, which shows the city you have chosen with all the hotels marked on it.

Mouse over each dot to see the hotel name, rating and price, or click on each dot to continue booking that hotel.

Suggestion: You can also find popular areas for dining, sightseeing, shopping, and nightlife on this map.

The central section of your screen will have a list of all available hotels for the dates you have chosen. As with flights, these are ordered by default by "Recommended"

If you want to sort by price, adjust the settings in the top right, below the search box.

Keep in mind that the price you see to the right of the hotel name is not necessarily the cheapest.

However, the great thing about KAYAK is that you can see the prices for each hotel on many different OTAs, as well as on the hotel's website.

You'll see these prices below the hotel name and its rating; Click the dropdown menu to see the full list.

→ How HostelWorld works, book hostels at the best price ←

Tips for booking hotels through Kayak

The prices shown for hotels do not include taxes, which can be quite high.

For example, I searched for a hotel for a long weekend in Chicago and chose the Park Hyatt (listed for €475 per night on Expedia).

When I clicked to complete the reservation, I found out that the tax per night was €82.66

Suggestion: The prices that appear on the hotel websites are not membership rates. Be sure to check the member rates on your specific hotel website - they are usually lower

When I clicked on Expedia, Orbitz, Travelocity, and Hotwire, they all offered the price of $475 per night plus tax, for a total of $2,230.64 for a 4-night stay.

However, when I went to book directly with Hyatt, I found a non-member total for 4 nights of €2,230.60 (€0.04 cheaper), while the member price was €2,141.35 for 4 nights.

So if you sign up as a World of Hyatt member (which you should because it's free) and book directly through Hyatt, you'd save €89.29.

Plus, you'll be able to earn hotel points and take advantage of any elite status you may have when you book directly through the hotel's website.

Hacker stay

Another hotel available for the same weekend had an advertised price of $429 on major OTAs such as Expedia, Orbitz, Travelocity, and Hotwire.

This was also the price offered directly by the hotel, bringing the total for a 4-night stay booked through any of these sites to $2,014.60.

Suggestion: By booking a Hacker Stay rate you can save a lot of money on your next hotel stay.

However, this hotel had a "Hacker Stay" rate of €392 per night. The total price of the “Hacker Stay” was €1,839.45, which is a saving of €175.15 for the exact same hotel room

When I clicked to book, I found out that this stay consisted of 1 night booked through Hotels.com and 3 nights booked through Expedia.

If you choose this route, you will end up with 2 different reservations and you may have to change rooms in the middle of your stay (although the hotel usually combines those reservations at check-in).

Save hotel choices and track prices

You can save the selected hotels to return to them later by clicking on “View”, just below the orange View Offer button.

This will automatically create a Saved Trip for you with all your hotel selections.

To keep track of your search prices, simply toggle the button in the top right corner of your screen (to the right of the search box) until you see a check mark.

Kayak Car Rental

To start looking for a rental car in kayaking, you just have to enter the chosen city and dates in the search bar at the top of the screen.

In the upper left part you can choose if you want to leave the car in the same place or in a different one from the one where it was picked up.

If you click on the calendar icon, a drop-down box will appear to choose the dates, pick-up time and delivery time.

You can also choose to have comparison sites appear below the location box to see prices for Hertz, Hotwire, Priceline, Budget, and Avis.

As with searching for flights or hotels in Kayak, searching for rental cars follows a similar pattern. On the left of your screen you will find all the options that will help you narrow your search.

You can choose to sort your search by car capacity, car type, payment type, rental agency, price, and other car options such as number of doors or transmission type.

After narrowing your search, all your options will appear in the center of your screen. Above the list you can choose how to sort your results (recommended, lowest price, or distance), and you'll see an alert if it's a good time to book.

Each list will indicate the type of vehicle, the capacity of the bags, the number of doors, the rental company and if it is a Special Rate.

These Special Rate offers will keep the car rental agency hidden until the reservation is complete.

Use the drop down arrow in the orange box or section on the right of the screen to compare Kayak prices with those of other websites.

How to find the best price for car rental in Kayak

In an example search, I found car rental prices all over the map. I looked for a midsize car for 4 days in Chicago and got a price of €200.

This does not include taxes, so you have to click on the chosen website to see what the actual price is. This is what I found:

• Kayaking – €216.40
• Orbitz – Wasn't available once I clicked, but other car options were available
• Thrify – €216.40 (I clicked their “hot deals” button and the price dropped to €207.69)
• Cheaptickets.com – Wasn't available once I clicked, but other car options were available
• Rentalcars.com – Didn't show the price at all

There was also a "special rate" available for a similar midsize car for just €139.19. If you're not picky about the exact type of car or who you rent it from, these special rate prices are a great deal.

Kayak Packages

Many people use OTAs and travel search engines to find great vacation package deals.

To view Kayak offers, click on “Packages” in the search bar at the top of your screen.

From here you will see a search bar just like in the Flights section.

First, enter your destination and dates to get a list of flights. Once you select the flight you want, you can add a hotel to make a package.

In summary You can save money by booking your hotel and flight together through Kayak's "Packages" option.

Just below your chosen flight you will see the section “Add a hotel”. To see what kind of deals I could get, I searched for a 5-night trip from Boston to Las Vegas.

This search returned 3 featured deals with varying levels of savings advertised, and I was able to view more deals by clicking the blue “See More Hotels” button.

Fashion Tip: Hotel deals change fast! The offers I had changed even when I did the same search only a few minutes apart. If you see something you like, you should book right away.

The first option was a stay at the Treasure Island Hotel and Casino, which advertised a savings of €367. I'm often skeptical of bundle deals, so I wanted to check it out for myself.

Booking this package, which included a roundtrip flight plus 5 nights on Treasure Island, would cost $800.86.

Booking the flight separately cost €216.37, and booking the hotel directly through their website would cost €951.60, for a total of €1,167.97 if booked separately.

This is a saving of €367 when booking the package, which is quite significant and exactly as advertised.

Find the best time to travel to popular destinations

If you have a destination in mind and want to find the most economical time to travel, Kayak Packages have you covered on that front as well.

Scroll to the bottom of the Packages tab, and you'll see a section called "Search Vacation Deals by Destination." When you click on a city in this section, you'll be able to see price trends throughout the year.

This tool will show the estimated price of a package each month, allowing you to choose the cheapest option. (Please note these are estimates only and actual prices may vary)

Kayak Cruises

Did you know you can also search for cruise deals on kayaking?

You can find these offers by clicking on the dropdown box under “More” in the main search bar.

Searching for cruises in Kayak is very simple and works similar to searching for a flight.

First, enter your search criteria such as cruise destination, cruise line, and departure month at the top of the page.

Click "Search" to see a full list of options, which you can narrow down further using the parameters on the left of the screen.

I've found that Kayak prices for cruises tend to be the same on any website - Expedia is generally the same price as Orbitz, which is the same price as Cruise.com.

However, the difference can sometimes be in the extras, such as credit on board. Unfortunately, Kayak doesn't display that information, so you'll have to click through each website to find the best price.

An important tip: Kayak doesn't display onboard credits offered by other websites, so it's best to click through each site to see what deals are offered.

As you can see in the table below, this week-long Royal Caribbean cruise was listed with different prices on Kayak, but after clicking through each site to see the final price, they were all identical.

The only difference is the amount of onboard credit you could receive with your reservation.

	Kayak Price	Real total price for 2 passengers	Onboard credit with purchase
orbitz	1,203 €	2,627.60 €	100 €
Expedia	1,219 €	2,627.60 €	100 €
Cruise.com	1,267 €	2,627.60 €	25 €
royal caribbean	not on the list	2,627.60 €	0 €

Advice: Cruise prices are per person, not per stateroom

I found a couple more things to consider when looking for a Kayak cruise. First, I saw an ad for an inside cabin on a Caribbean cruise showing a lower price on Orbitz.

However, after clicking through each site, I found that the same lower price was available on all sites.

Another thing to consider when looking for a kayak cruise is the type of cabin you are looking for.

When I searched for a 7-night Caribbean cruise in a balcony stateroom, the price on the right of the search box was correct.

However, you'll also see the additional prices at the bottom of the search box: these are the prices for the Basic Inside Stateroom, not the Premium Staterooms like Ocean View or Balcony.

It can be a bit confusing if you are not aware that those prices are not really for the stateroom you have searched for.

kayak guides

Kayak Guides are a great tool to start planning some activities for your next trip.

You can find the guides by clicking the "More" dropdown box in the main search bar at the top of your screen.

From here you can enter your destination or search by region or popular destinations.

In the guide for each city, you will find general information about the area, as well as suggestions on things to do, places to eat, the most and least expensive times to visit, and even the average time throughout the year.

You can see how to get there, including links that take you to search for flights. You can also see information about the different areas of the city, including links to hotels in that area.

One of my favorite parts of this tool is the city map that shows you the most popular areas for sightseeing, eating, shopping, and nightlife.

Just click on the item you want to view and watch the colors on the map change to reveal popular areas for your chosen activity.

This map also shows the location of the hotels. For more information, all you have to do is click on a point: the hotel information will appear, as well as a link to click and book.

The most important Kayak Guides is a great resource to help you plan all aspects of your trip, including the best times to visit, local weather, and the best areas for sightseeing, dining, shopping, and nights out.

kayaking trips

You can find Kayak Trips in the upper right corner of your screen.

This is where you can keep all your travel and itinerary information in one place. There are several options to manage this function:

• Add your trip manually
• Connect your email inbox to import booking receipt emails
• Forward booking emails to [email protected]

Once your flights are added, you'll be able to see real-time updates for check-in, flight status, and gate change information. Plus, you'll be able to access your itinerary offline.

An important tip: Use Viajes Kayak to organize and share all the details of your vacation.

If you are traveling with a group, you can share all the trip details with your group by creating a link to your trip information page.

Once you're viewing your trip details, look for the blue "Share" button, which displays a link to your trip information that you can send to your friends and family.

You can also allow someone else to edit the trip information from this button.

If you want to try other options for booking hotels at the best price, we recommend that you look at Lastminute Opinions Is it worth it? Is Lastminute reliable? or if you want to try Expedia, another search engine that we love.

Skyscanner has also taken a step forward to catch up on the cheap hotel search.

Other interesting options for find travel packs are Traventia either Travala if you want to pay with cryptocurrencies.

Kayaking Offers

Kayak Offers are located in the More dropdown menu on the main menu.

This section differs from the Kayak Packages in that you cannot build your own trip; the offers you find here are established packages that include different things (vacation packages, cruises, flights, hotels, etc.).

Some of these deals were straightforward and easy to book through an OTA, while others were a bit more complicated.

For example, I found a 6-day rail holiday package to Dublin and Killarney, but I couldn't just click and book right away.

Instead, clicking took me to an OTA where I had to request a quote. Although not a huge problem, it requires more effort than hitting the "buy now" button

Final Thoughts and Kayak Opinions

Although you may think that Kayak is an online travel agency (OTA) like Expedia or Orbitz, it's actually a different animal.

Kayak is a search engine, and it's a great tool to start planning your trips.

And as we have said, Kayak is reliable and completely safe.

In Google you can find Kayak opinions that will show you the reliability of this website.

The best thing about Kayak is that it compares prices across all the OTAs you know (like Expedia and Orbitz), plus airline and hotel websites.

This allows you to see where the best prices are without having to go to each individual website.

Kayak also offers tools to help you plan and organize your trips.. It's a one stop shop for researching and planning any vacation you can imagine.

---