Navigate the tricky waters of travel planning with Kayak.com

Remember how the Internet was going to make travel-planning easier for everyone? How you were going to be able to find the cheapest airfare with just a few clicks of your computer mouse and tippety-taps on your keyboard? WRONG! If you're like most people, the web has made making travel reservations even MORE complicated. With a dizzying array of options from dozens of competing sites, it's nearly impossible to make sure you're getting the best deal out there. And with the accelerating demise of the traditional travel agent, you're often left to flounder on your own in a sea of confusion.

To add to the problem, many travel sites such as Orbitz, Expedia and Travelocity claim to search all available airfare and hotel deals out there, but here's the hidden, ugly truth: these sites often make exclusive "deals" with travel providers, exclude many of the lower-cost airlines from searches, or favor one airline over another in their search results.

Say "hi" to Kayak.com.

As a travel aggregator, Kayak.com does not sell any travel products directly, but merely collects the offers from "over 100 online travel sites, providing prices and itineraries for more than 550 airlines and 85,000 hotels." Kayak.com then lets you easily filter duplicate fares, change your search parameters and instantly see the reorganized results. Plus when you search for hotels, you see ratings and reviews provided by readers and respected travel sites such as Frommer's and Fodors. Of course, Kayak doesn't search EVERY airline web site (including that of major low-cost carrier Southwest), but the site promises it's working diligently to add new partners. Until then, you'll need to check these "renegade" airline sites yourself.

Try out Kayak.com for yourself using the seach box in the right-hand column of the Travel Coach blog. And in case you were wondering....no, I'm not making any commission on flights you book through Kayak.com on my blog. At least not yet :)