New search tools help bargain hunters cut their shopping time

For bargain-minded travelers, the Web may be a great place to save money -- but it can be an equally great place to waste time in the pursuit.

On average, consumers visit 3.6 sites before booking an airline ticket and 2.9 before reserving a hotel, according to a recent study from PhoCusWright. Two travel sites have used this information to create innovative search features that could save you money and time.

Travelzoo.com recently unveiled its SuperSearch feature, a sort of smart “aggregator” that performs like a Google search engine for travel sites, scanning the websites of 45 travel suppliers.

SuperSearch is a straightforward “enter travel dates and destination here” interface, but it then sorts through and provides links to those sites that can fulfill the itinerary you se- lect. SuperSearch transfers the search criteria onto the sites you want to search, saving you the hassle of going from site to site and re-entering the same itinerary.

This concept is similar to what other aggregators such as SideStep and Mobissimo do, although they actually search the sites for your itinerary and return results. SuperSearch, in contrast, directs you to sites that will help you get the itinerary you want.

What sets SuperSearch apart is its ranking system. At the end of a SuperSearch session, consumers are offered a survey that asks them to rate their experience at the sites that they visited. This helps determine the order in which sites appear in a search; those sites with higher consumer ratings will appear at the top when searched. More than 200,000 surveys are now tallied into the SuperSearch ranking, and more are being added every day.

“SuperSearch keeps getting smarter and smarter,” said Jason Dailey, a product manager at Travelzoo and developer of SuperSearch.

SuperSearch will appeal to that segment of online travelers who shop around. I like the idea of the integration of consumer feedback with the rankings of the websites; as more is gathered, the results will have added relevance, Dailey said. It’s a good place to start a search because it winnows the sites you need to check, but I would still include the traditional aggregators such as SideStep.

For last-minute travelers who want a weekend getaway but are not necessarily set on a destination, Site59 has introduced the 59th-Minute Dash search engine. Enter your travel dates and destination, and it will give results for that itinerary, but it will also suggest alternate dates and similar destinations that, for the flexible traveler, could save you money.

“It’s the first real tool in the travel industry that allows people to comparison shop at a glance,” said Siobhan Foley of Site59.

When I looked for a hotel-airfare package for Honolulu for an upcoming weekend, the search results included options for the dates and itinerary I entered (from $666 a person). But it also suggested alternate dates (from $456) and other places, such as “other destinations in the West” (from $237 at Lake Tahoe) and “other beach destinations” (from $380 for a La Jolla trip).

The $456 alternate-dates deal would have allowed me to stay in Hawaii an extra night and save $210 per person, though when I clicked through to try to book it, it was no longer available. So if you see a great deal, grab it.

This works only for last-minute travel, but for a quick getaway, it could offer a money-saving alternative. Because it is that quest for the deal that often drives online shoppers, it’s a nice tool to add to a bargain hunter’s bag of tricks.

Contact James Gilden at www.theinternettraveler.com.