Get the skinny on potential flights

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I think this could be travel love. The New York Times just featured an article (“A Website Tries to Redefine Value“) about a new travel website called Insidetrip.com that goes above and beyond just comparing prices when you’re researching airfares.

Like other airfare comparison sites, you type in your airport information, dates and preferred times of travel, number of travelers, etc. and click on the search button. When the results page comes up, you realize this is not like those other airfare comparison sites. Insidetrip rates each flight on Overall Quality, based on a number of factors including on-time statistics, legroom, speed, security waits, load factor (will your plane be really full, or dare you hope the seat next to you might be empty so you can spread out a little bit?), how easy it will be for you to get to your connecting flight (woo!), and the chances they will lose your baggage, among other criteria. It has a dashboard with checkboxes so you can uncheck any criteria that are less important to you (such as aircraft type). It seems very intuitive and easy to use. You can book your flights through the website via its partner, Orbitz.

This could be a great tool for everyone, obviously, not just solos. But if you’re new to the solo travel game (and/or the type who gets stressed out by flying), you certainly want to make sure that your flights go as smoothly as possible. Naturally, there are no guarantees that something won’t still go wrong (I’ll try to do a future post on that subject), because hey, this is life. Things go wrong sometimes. But you can at least tip the scales as much in your favor as possible by doing your research ahead of time, so you know what to expect and control your own travel preferences as much as possible. This website is the easiest way I’ve seen to quickly compile all the relevant information necessary to make a decision on what flight to book.

The site has just started, so it remains to be seen whether it will live up to its concept, but the concept is oh so brilliant and so welcome to someone like me. I’ll certainly be keeping my eyes on it. Check it out: Insidetrip.com.