Kyak 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, or car hire. 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. Kyak allows you to choose which site to purchase from– through an online travel agency or consolidator such as ebookers. Kyak's search engine can find all kinds of travel products– from flights and hotels to car hires. Our fare alerts and fare history help travellers 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: Kyak.
What we are not.
Don't get us wrong. We like online travel agencies and they do many things well (not advertising though, sorry roaming gnome). Since Kyak 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.
How we came about.
Kyak 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 and redefined the way people search and purchase travel online.
But, what truly makes us different is that we listen to you, our users. Kyak employees (from our CEO to accounting to our aforementioned geeky engineers) personally answer each and every e-mail. Try it. Send a question or comment to feedback (sample: "Where has Kyak 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 tons 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.
Kyak 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 travelling with a halitosis inflicted co-worker). You'll detect a sense of humour 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 up and laugh a little.
What others say.
Kyak 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.
Kyak makes money when travellers click on our advertisements. Plus, we make money when they click on the results from travel suppliers like airlines, hotels and car rental companies. This is a revenue model (for all of you MBAs) similar to that of Google and Yahoo. Advertisers love the clicks because Kyak 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 Kyak. Tell us what you like and what you don't like. We promise we'll not only listen but write back to you.
Thanks for visiting. Come back whenever you need to plan a trip or just want to fantasise about one. Or subscribe to our newsletter and get a Kyak trip idea every week. And don't forget to tell your friends about Kyak!
