Travel search engines: new routes to deals: the lowest prices on plane tickets, hotels, and rental cars are now closer at hand.(CR Money)(Brief Article)

The launch last year of two new travel search engines, Kayak and Mobissimo, increases your odds of finding the absolute lowest prices on airfares, hotels, and rental cars.

Like SideStep, a travel search engine introduced in 2000, these sites are trying to do for travel what Google did for Internet searches. They scour scores of Web sites for pricing information, unlike traditional travel Web sites such as Expedia, Orbitz, and Travelocity, the so-called Big Three, which only search their own databases and travel-agency reservation systems.

When we tried out the new travel search engines, we found their wide-ranging approach to be very effective at uncovering great deals. As with any new technology, however, the sites are a little rough around the edges.

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In our limited test, we pitted the three new search engines against the Big Three in searches for four purchases. In every case, the former found the lowest prices.

We saved $100, of about 33 percent, on a ticket from Boston to Los Angeles booked two months in advance with the search engines. Kayak (www.kayak.com), Mobissimo (www.mobissimo.com), and SideStep (www.sidestep.com) turned up a $200 ticket on AirTran; the best Orbitz (www.orbitz.com) could do was a $300 seat on America West. Surprisingly, AirTran is an Orbitz partner. That shows how traditional online travel agencies can be undercut by their own suppliers, who may give them higher prices than those posted on their own sites, which are scanned by the search engines.

When we looked for last-minute tickets from Baltimore to Fort Lauderdale, Fla., SideStep and Kayak beat out Expedia (www.expedia.com) with a ticket on AirTran for $117 vs. $121. Although $4 is not a big difference, Expedia also tacked on a $5 booking lee. (The Big Three charge ticket lees ranging from $5 to $16.) The fees also came into play on another search we did that turned up comparable fares on a ticket from Washington, D.C., to London. The extra dollars can add up if you're booking a vacation for the family.