When it comes to finding flights online, many of us have become experts. And many of us have our preferred tools – whether that’s Momondo, Skyscanner, Kayak or Google Flights. So what about this Trip.com?
Does Trip.com come up trumps with the flights in a head to head battle? Well, we’ve taken the time to put Trip to the test.
In our test, we looked at three flights:
- Long haul: London to Bangkok
- Short haul: London to Paris
- Multi city: London to Singapore to Sydney and back.
The Long Haul Test
We ran our long haul search through Skyscanner, Google Flights and Trip. We’re not choosing the cheapest dates either here, flying from 1st January to the 15th January… A nice two week break in Thailand after New Years, don’t mind if we do?
Skycanner
The cheapest flights to Bangkok with Skyscanner are £612, which includes a lengthy stopover in Nairobi – courtesy of Kenyan Airlines. That’s an 18 hour layover! On the plus side you could go on a quick safari…. But I digress.
A better option here is a flight with Vietnam Airlines via Ho Chi Minh and just a 3 hour wait each way. This clocks in at £755 which isn’t too bad.
The cheapest direct flight is £1537 (!!!owch) with Thai.
Trip
For the Kenyan Airlines flight, Trip comes up with £613 (£1 more) and for the Vietnam Airlines option its £773. That’s £18 more.
But they bring us that direct flight with Thai for £1 cheaper, so they might have redeemed it there. If you don’t mind paying 1.5k to fly to Thailand…
The search engine flight site doesn’t find Kenya’s option, and the Vietnam Airlines option is £775. The most expensive option so far.
And to add insult to injury, Google also only comes up with the most expensive direct flight at £1624. That’s nearly £100 more than the other two!
Winner? Skyscanner 1 and Trip 1 – Google 0
Want to try your own Trip dot com review? Search flights using our handy widget….
Short haul
Same dates as before… 1st January to 15th January, from London to Paris for one adult.
Skyscanner
A flight with Europe’s best budget airline, Vueling? (Yes they did win that accolade) – and it’s only £69. Yes its from Gatwick to Orly, but that’s all good. But these are early flights… A reasonable time departure both ways is more like £100.
Trip
The cheapest option with Trip is £76, which is the same flight as the £69 option at Skyscanner. Other than that, all the other prices are the same!
Google actually beats Trip at £72 for that same flight – somewhere between the two. However every other flight on the list is on the wrong side of £100 so Trip beats them out here too.
Score: Skyscanner wins 1 – Trip gets 0.5. Google 0.5 too
Try out Skyscanner yourself with our handy flight search widget…
Multi city
OK, lets get expensive. And slightly complicated. To put this Trip.com review through it’s paces, we’ve planned a London to Singapore to Sydney trip and then back. We’re also gonna take this slightly out of peak season, and add a few days in each.
So out flight search was 15th Jan fly London to Singapore. 20th Jan fly to Sydney from Singapore. 31st Jan return to London from Sydney.
How did we fare?
Skyscanner
The price to beat from Skyscanner is £1566. That includes a flight from London to Helsinki to Singapore. Then up to Cebu and back down to Sydney. Before two stops in Ho Chi Minh and Hanoi on the way home to London.
Yeah that’s a headache.
So Emirates offer an option for £1885 which cuts out a stop between Singapore and Sydney.
Trip
Trip’s cheapest option is £1899. But it does avoid double transfers in Vietnam. BUT – you have TWENTY ONE HOUR LAYOVER in Delhi airport. Nah.
Their next best options come in at over £2000…. Not looking good so far.
Ooohhh… Google swoops in with a steal here. At £1465 for that nightmarish multi-stopover option, or £1655 for a slightly less arduous option including Qatar Airways, Google flights dominates the multistop.
Winner? Google 1 – Skyscanner 0.5 – Trip 0
Final standings?
Based on our (not very scientific) study, we find that Skyscanner comes out top with 2.5
Google and Trip.com tied on 1.5 each.
So there you have it… If you want to find the best prices for your vacation, it pays to shop around for your flights.
Knowing how to find cheap flights can save you a lot on your travel budget, so make sure to shop around!
