Find the cheapest airfare deals

By Bankrate.com

Shopping online for airline tickets used to be a no-brainer. All you needed was a few minutes to browse the "big three" -- Orbitz, Travelocity and Expedia -- and voilá, you had your ideal itinerary at a sensible price point.

While buying tickets online is still the most efficient way to book a flight, the online travel landscape is getting increasingly harder to navigate. Not only is there an abundance of seemingly similar travel sites and search engines to pick from, but tickets are also becoming less and less affordable.

"We have been spoiled by absurdly cheap air fares in the past," says Henry Harteveldt, an analyst with Forrester Research, a company that follows travel trends. "As much as it's a shock to see prices go up, we see how much it costs to fill up our own gas tanks. So, we can only imagine how much the airlines must spend on jet fuel."

Still, high prices are hard to reconcile, especially for bargain-hunting travelers. There are deals out there -- they're just harder to find.

Take your browsing a bit further

"The key to getting a deal is to be a flexible shopper," Harteveldt says. "Consumers need to do research and explore nontraditional ways to get to their destination."

That means browsing -- not just the big three, but also the slew of relatively new travel search engines, such as Kayak, Mobissimo and FareChaser, as well as the increasingly popular sites that combine travel planning with community, such as TripAdvisor and newbie TripConnect. You may not be able to actually book flights directly from these sites, but you'll get great feedback on how to best plan your trip and find the best air deals.

"The big three online agencies have totally redefined how we buy and sell travel," he says. "But there's certainly room for more innovations." In fact, most travel experts welcome these sites. They urge travelers to take the time to explore their options and shop around. That doesn't mean you need to spend hours scouring the Web, but you shouldn't be too impulsive because fares fluctuate.

"As much as we'd love to find that one-stop shop travel site, it just doesn't exist. There is no one site that can possibly capture all of the available airfares," says Bill McGee, a consultant for Consumer Reports WebWatch, a project of Consumers Union. "Because each third-party site negotiates rates and fares in proprietary ways and at different moments, it's hard to get a snapshot of what's available in real time."

Sometimes, of course, you will stumble upon a great deal early on in the shopping process. In that case, experts say you should take advantage of it before someone else does. "There are fewer lower fares out there now," says Joel Frey, a spokesman for Travelocity. "So, if you see a deal, don't hesitate to book it. It could be gone in a half an hour."

Strategies for the search

So, where should you start searching? McGee advises consumers to shop the big three first to find the best rate. Then, he says, you should visit the site of the airline that's offering the desired fare and buy the ticket there. That way, he says, you can avoid the surcharges and $5 to $7 booking fee that a third-party site tacks on.

For travelers looking for a weekend getaway, Site59 will serve you well. "It's great for people who don't have a specific place in mind when they go to a travel site, but know they want to get away," says Elissa Richard, associate editor of Shermans Travel, a company that compiles offers from airlines, vacation package providers, cruise lines, hotels and more. "The site is designed to give these travelers a little inspiration."

If you're a spontaneous traveler with no time constraints, you may appreciate bidding sites such as Priceline. You can't always choose your airline or flight times, but, "They are good alternatives for people who don't have a lot of limitations," McGee says.

If you're partial to visiting the airline's site directly, travel search engines may be your best bet. "They scrape all the data from all the airlines and without adding any fees, they connect you to the airline directly," Richard says. She recommends Kayak for domestic travel and Mobissimo for international travel. Cfares is another site getting a lot of attention for its international deals.

Search more airlines

What's great about the travel search engines is that they partner with hundreds of carriers, unlike the big three, which tend to partner with only major airlines. Kayak, for example, recently started showing fares from JetBlue. Plus, it has many user-friendly features -- it recognizes the cities you type in most often, thus saving you time.

Richard says Mobissimo is similar to Kayak, but tends to have better access to international fares due to its strong database of European airlines.

There's also a cluster of really innovative sites popping up. FlySpy and Farecast graphically show you how fares to your desired destination trend over a 30-day period. This allows you to see which days of the week may be cheaper to fly -- and not just from the airport you selected, but from others nearby. "This is a great example of how travel sites are evolving," says Richard. "It's all about taking it to the next level of relevance."

This article was reported and written by Alana Klein for Bankrate.com.