Airfare Watchdog: Ask George about AirfareWatchdog

If you were looking for cheap airfares, where would you turn to? Well, it could be to AirfareWatchdog, a website that tracks low cost airfare from any city in the US to hundreds of destinations worldwide.

Alternatively, you could "Ask George" or George Hobica, a travel journalist, who also happens to be the founder of AirfareWatchdog, and writes the "Ask George" travel column for Copley News Service.

AirfareWatchdog is not an airfare aggregator site. This means that if you were to log on to the AirfareWatchdog site, you will not be able to find and book your ticket to the destination of your choice from the website.

Instead, you will be connected to other sites, such as Orbitz, Tripadvisor, Expedia, Travelocity, CheapAir and Bing.

So what is it that you get from AirfareWatchdog?

It is of course information. As the website points out, the dealhounds on the Airfare Watchdog team dig out information for you on
a) Top 50 (cheapest) fares
b) Cheapest airfares out of any destination of your choice.
c) Airfare Watchdog travel advisory created by George Hobica and distributed via the AirfareWatchdog blog.

What does all this mean? How does AirfareWatchdog work?
AirfareWatchdog, as already mentioned, is not an airfare aggregator site. Hence, when you log on to the site's home page, instead of the conventional search option, which allows you to search the cheapest fare from a departure point you choose to to a destination of your choice. you are offered only one option: the search for all low fare flights out of your city, but not to a destination of your choice.

Alternatively, you could key in your destination and find all cheap flights arriving at that airport---though it may not be from where you live.

In sum, if you wanted to fly out of O'Hare International Airport, Chicago, Illinois, US, to Logan International Airport, Boston, Massachusetts, US, AirfareWatchdog can give you information on all cheap flights out of O'Hare, but it may not be to Logan!

Instead, AirfareWatchdog could give you rates for a flight to Albany NY ($296), Washington DC ($196) or Toronto, Canada ($158)--as was the case when I checked the site.


In case the suggestions do not work for you, you could set up an alert. AirfareWatchdog will send you email alerts on all cheap flights out of O'Hare, Chicago.

In case you are particular that you would like to fly only from O'Hare to Logan, AirfareWatchdog can make this information available, but it would be through other airfare aggregator and booking sites such as such as Orbitz, Expedia, Tripadvisor, CheapAir, Travelocity and Bing.

So how is AirfareWatchdog useful?

Consider the possibility that you are planning a holiday either alone or with your family and the destination is not as important as actually taking a break.

Well, log on to AirfareWatchdog, create an alert, and wait for cheap flight information to a destination that works for you and your family.

That sounds like magic, isn't it, but there is a small catch.

Currently, AirfareWatchdog works primarily for US cities

So what happens when you log in to AirfareWatchdog and try to find cheap flights out of Mumbai India.

AirfareWatchdog does not blink. "Hmm.." it suggests, "we don't feature fares for that city. But guess what? We've got tons of other cities! Try another one."

Understandable. AirfareWatchdog announced early this year that it was looking at expanding its reach by targeting audiences in Europe, particularly UK. Towards this end, the AirfareWatchdog website was relaunched with a simple user interface.

So understandably, AirfareWatchdog's services are primarily targeted at US passengers, though the search options on the website indicate that information on some international destinations are available, including cities such as Tokyo, Japan, Moscow in Russia, Bangkok in Thailand, Paris in France and Reykjavik in Iceland.