Kayak is a travel search engine. Which means we search hundreds of travel sites from all over the world, provide the information to you in an easy-to-use display and send you directly to the source to make your purchase. More than any other travel site, we help you find the perfect flight, hotel, cruise, or rental car. After all, what good are 1000 options when you can’t find the flight you want? Once you make your choice, we link to the travel sites to make your purchase. Kayak allows you to choose which site to purchase from– through an online travel agency or consolidator such as Orbitz or Airfare.com. Kayak’s search engine can find all kinds of travel products– from flights and hotels to rental cars and cruises. Our fare alerts and fare history help travelers stay on top of ever-changing travel prices.
In short, you are in control of your travel choices. Since we search hundreds of travel websites (including online travel agency sites), you now have to search only one: Kayak.
What we are not.
Unlike online travel agencies, Kayak is not a store. Online travel agencies are retailers that can only sell you the products on their shelves. Their displays are designed to sell the merchandise that make them the most money AND they tack on a service fee for each airline ticket booked which adds up for a family vacation.
Kayak is not limited to the size of a stockroom. In fact, since we don’t sell anything, we don’t even have a stockroom. Rather, we search for travel goods across the Web and provide details on hundreds of options. Since Kayak doesn’t sell anything, there’s no hidden agenda or biased displays. And, Kayak is free to use.
Don’t get us wrong. We like online travel agencies and they do many things well (not advertising though, sorry roaming gnome). Since Kayak wants to provide our users with a comprehensive set of results, we search dozens of agencies and let you decide where to purchase– directly from a supplier or from an online agency.
Why we are.
Kayak was started by founders of Orbitz, Travelocity and Expedia who believed in a better online travel experience. They hired a crack team of geeky engineers who brought expertise from all over the Web, finagled a couple ducats out of General Catalyst, Sequoia Capital and Accel Partners. Along the way, Kayak redefined the way people search and purchase travel online.
But, what truly makes us different is that we listen to you, our users. Kayak employees (from our CEO to accounting to our aforementioned geeky engineers) personally answer each and every email. Try it. Send a question or comment to feedback (sample: “Where has Kayak been all my life?”) and you’ll get a real answer from a real person (sample: “In southwest Connecticut, thanks for asking.”)
Anyone can listen but we also react. Sometimes it’s fixing a bug reported by a user. Other times, it’s adding a tool that users are asking for. For instance, we received a ton of requests for multi-city and flexible search, so we dropped everything and built it. In fact, we’re the only travel search engine to offer these tools.
Kayak believes travel is fun and why shouldn’t the process of researching and booking travel be as enjoyable as the rest of the trip (or even better than the trip if you’re traveling with a halitosis inflicted co-worker). You’ll see a sense of humor throughout the site, from our tool tips to our weekly newsletter. After all, it’s not rocket science (it’s computer science) so why not lighten and laugh a little.
What others say.
Kayak has been named “Best of the Web” by BusinessWeek, “Best of the Web” by Forbes.com, “50 Coolest Websites” by TIME Magazine, “Best Travel Search Engine” by the Associated Press, “Best Search Aid” by Travel + Leisure Magazine and “Best of the Web” by US News & World Report. See all our awards or read what the media is saying about us.
How we make money.
Kayak makes money when travelers click on our advertisements. Plus, we make money when they click on the results from travel suppliers like airlines, hotels and rental car companies. This is a revenue model (for all of you MBAs) similar to that of Google and Yahoo. Advertisers love the clicks because Kayak traffic is far more qualified than generic search engines.
The bottom line for consumers, however, is that we are not trying to sell you anything, which allows us to provide objective, comprehensive travel information to use as you want. Then, you select the travel products you want to buy and you decide where to buy them.
So use Kayak. Tell us what you like and what you don’t like. We promise we’ll not only listen but write you back.
Thanks for visiting. Come back whenever you need to plan a trip or just want to fantasize about one. Or subscribe to our newsletter and get a Kayak trip idea every week. And don’t forget to tell your friends about Kayak!
Life’s a Trip.
Comments(0) 
