[ding] [airplane engines]
Hey guys! My name is Nicole, and I'm on the Customer Advocacy Team at
Scott's Cheap Flights. Along with Google Flights, Momondo is one of Scott's Cheap Flights'
favorite flight search engines. Not everyone is familiar with Momondo, so we
decided to put together this pros and cons roundup, as well as a tutorial.
You can find our in-depth Google Flights guide here or in the description below.
The good about Momondo is that it searches just about every single online
travel agency, or "OTA", as we like to call them, out there: the bigger ones that
we've all heard of, like Expedia and Orbitz, or the smaller, relatively new
ones like Fareboom and Exploretrip. Because it searches all OTAs rather than
just a few, Momondo is much more likely than Google Flights
to find the cheapest possible price for any given flight. Not always, but in about
98% or so of cases, it will find the cheapest price.
[booing noises] The bad about Momondo is that the searches are slow... real slow. Makes sense
considering how many OTAs they're searching at once. Plus, unlike Google
Flights, you can't do flexible date searches. If you want to find the
cheapest flight for a given route in the next three months,
you'd have to search every single day in there. If you have any flexibility in
your dates, it's typically better to start your searching in Google Flights,
find the best dates, and then carry those dates over to Momondo. You can watch our
video about using the two in tandem right here. Okay, okay, okay, I know why you're
really here. You're thinking, "Scott," or "Nicole, are
these OTAs really trustworthy? I read some questionable reviews online and I'm
worried that I'm gonna get scammed." This is a common and important question.
The short answer is that if you're worried that some OTA is gonna take your money
and not give you the tickets don't be. The longer answer is that most
OTAs are able to offer these really cheap fares because they're skimping on
customer support, and they're also imposing really high change/cancellation
fees. If you're quite confident in your dates and you don't think you'll be
needing customer support after purchasing, it could be worth the savings.
Of course, if you are still feeling unsure or uncomfortable, it might not be
worth the risk, and it may just be worth the peace of mind
just to book directly with the airline or with a major OTA. Here we are at the
Momondo home page and I've already put in my departure and destination.
I'm flying from Chicago and going to Guatemala. I'm also gonna put in my dates
now, because Momondo doesn't currently offer the option to search flexible
dates. So, I'd like to go in the summer. I'm just gonna scroll to June and let's
do the 16th to the 23rd. All that's left is to click "search", and this can take up
to 60 seconds with Momondo. You can watch your search progress right here, and when
it's done, it'll look like this: "search complete".
Now with Momondo, you can't customize your preferences before the search, but
you can after. If we look over here on the left, we can filter for stops and we
can also change the flight duration, which is a great way to avoid long
layovers. We can filter for what time of the day we depart and what time of the
day we return, and if we scroll down further we can actually filter for
airline. If you'd like to change the ticket class, whether it's business or
first class, you can do so just below the search bar here. You will have to do the
search over again if you do choose to change ticket class. Something that
oftentimes gets overlooked is the "see all results". Prices are usually pretty
similar to the top result, although they can vary in timing and route, so why not
click "see all results" and take a look for yourself. So I'm first given the
option to look at the cheapest nonstop flight, but if I keep scrolling down, I
can see other ones that are really similar to the first result I saw before.
I know that some of these are actually not better than the first result, and
that's for a few different reasons. First of all, I'm keeping an eye on the total
flight duration. 29 hours is a lot, even if you're going to Guatemala. I'm also
looking at stops. Of course I would love a nonstop flight, but since it's out of
my budget, I'm willing to stop just once, not twice.
Lastly, I'm keeping an eye on the smiley or not so smiley face. This rating shows
the balance between the average flying time and the price of the ticket, so I
know my first result is probably my best bet, just because they did rank a 5.5.
And if I want to book I can just click "go to site", and that'll take me straight to
Justfly, but if I'd prefer to book with another online travel agency, or "OTA", as
we like to call them, I can go ahead and click on "see details". Once here, I can go
ahead and click on "show all booking sites", and then I'm taken to a huge list
of online travel agencies. Lastly, I want to talk about "major US carrier".
What's up with that? Sometimes when you search for flights on
Momondo, instead of seeing the airline name or the logo, you see "major
US carrier". Airlines have complicated agreements with various OTAs offering
varying discounts based on schedule, routes, and other factors. In some
instances, airlines are willing to give a small additional discount to OTAs on
unsold seats so long as the carrier is not made public. What's more, even though
Momondo says it's a major US carrier, in fact, oftentimes it's not even a US-based
carrier. Luckily, there's an easy workaround to reveal the true airline's
identity when it's shrouded in mystery: compare schedules! In essence, you just
have to look at the flight times of the major US carrier flight, scroll down and
find the exact same flight with the actual airline listed. Because they have
the same exact flight time, we can deduct that the major US carrier is Lufthansa,
[gavel sound] and so that's a mystery solved! If you found this video helpful, please give me
a big thumbs up and any questions, comments, concerns, or praise this time for
the Customer Advocacy Team, why not comment them below? Don't forget to check
out our in-depth Google Flights tutorial, as well as the tutorial showing you how
to use Google Flights and Momondo together to find the cheapest possible
ticket out there. I'm Nicole from the Customer Advocacy Team at Scott's Cheap
Flights; happy flight searching!