Momondo is a mainstay for the cheap flight community. Simply put, it is one of the best flight search engines for getting the cheapest fare possible.
As opposed to better-known sites like Expedia and Priceline, Momondo does not actually sell flights. Instead, Momondo operates as a meta-search engine, scouring hundreds of online travel agencies (OTAs) to find the cheapest possible fare.
What is Momondo?
Momondo is a travel aggregator and search site that shows you flights, hotels, car rentals, and activities for your chosen dates and location. It was founded in 2006 and is now owned by Booking Holdings, which also owns Trivago, Skyscanner, and Kayak.
What Momondo is good at
Momondo excels in a number of areas:
- Searching everywhere at once: Instead of searching various online travel agencies one-by-one, it’s far quicker and easier to search them all simultaneously in Momondo.
- Finding the cheapest fares: Many times the cheapest fare for a given flight is found not at Orbitz or Travelocity, but rather with a small upstart online travel agency. Momondo surfaces those fares so you can compare them to booking directly with the airline and decide if the savings is worth booking with a smaller OTA.
What Momondo is bad at
Here’s where Momondo lags:
- Searching a range of dates: Though Momondo is really good at finding the cheapest price for a specific date, there’s no good way to see the cheapest fare over a number of weeks or months. (Put zero stock in the fare graph they pull up when you’re running a search, it’s fare estimates and bad ones at that.)
- Flexible destinations: You can only search one specific destination city at a time rather than multiple. Though you can put in regions like “Western Europe” we’ve found the results to be unreliable.
- Completing searches quickly: Whereas Google Flights takes a fraction of a second to pull up fares, it can take upwards of a minute for results on Momondo to load because it's searching hundreds of sites at once.
Eagle-eyed readers will notice that Momondo’s weaknesses mirror Google Flights’ strengths and vice versa. This is why with many deals, using both sites in tandem is the best strategy.
How to use Momondo to find flights
Best practice when searching for flights is to start your search on Google Flights, find the best route and dates, then check those dates in Momondo to see if there’s a lower price there.
Let’s walk through an example together. Say you’re a romantic, so you’re planning a trip to Europe for Valentine’s Day, but you’re self-conscious about appearing cliche, so you’re thinking Amsterdam instead of Paris.
You start in Google Flights, poke around at various dates, and find flights from Atlanta to Amsterdam for $596 roundtrip from February 12-19.
Pulling up Momondo, you input the exact same route and dates like so:
Remember that Momondo searches usually take an internet eternity (30+ seconds) to complete; big patience is required. You’ll know it’s done when the wheel in the upper left stops spinning and shows this:
Momondo found the exact same flight for $559, a price drop of $37 from Google Flights.
In this case, Google Flights’ $596 fare is sold directly by United and Momondo’s $559 fare is sold by Bargainairticket, a relatively small online travel agency. If you want to book that fare, just click the green “Go to site” button.
The question of whether to book a flight with an online travel agency you may not have heard of is a tricky one; we have a more thorough writeup in our complete guide to online travel agencies (OTAs).
To get more information about a particular flight routing, click DETAILS in the lower left corner. If you’re interested in the flight but don’t want to book with Bargainairticket (or whichever site has the absolute cheapest fare) you can see how much other online travel agencies are selling the flight for by clicking PRICES.
All fares shown include taxes.
How to use filters to find the best flights on Momondo
Unlike Google Flights where you can set filters anywhere in the search process, with Momondo you can only filter results after you’ve already begun the search.
All the Momondo filters can be found on the left-hand side, including number of stops, trip duration, trip times, airports, airline(s) and/or alliance(s), booking sites, economy or first class, price, aircraft, and various other flight characteristics.
Booking multi-stop flights on Momondo
Momondo makes it easy to search for open-jaw and multi-stop flights as well (along with one ways). Just select "multi-stop" from the dropdown above the flight search box and then input your dates and locations as usual.
Booking car rentals, hotels, activities and more on Momondo
In addition to flights, Momondo performs its same search magic on hotels, car rentals, travel packages, and activities. You can even search for train and bus tickets. As with flights, Momondo itself does not sell any of these, but rather directs you to the OTA, hotel, train company, or car rental agency where you can book.
Summary
Momondo is one of our most-used search sites, simply because it often unearths lower fares than what you can find on Google Flights, other OTAs, or direct with the airline. Sometimes the price difference isn't much and in that case we recommend booking directly with the airline, but in other cases the price on Momondo may be significantly lower. Either way, we always recommend a quick search on Momondo to see if they have a lower fare than what you've found elsewhere.
Frequently asked questions about Momondo
Who owns Momondo?
Momondo is owned Booking Holdings, which also owns a number of other travel companies, including Trivago, Skyscanner, and Kayak.
How does Momondo make money?
Momondo makes a commission every time someone books a flight, hotel, car rental, tour, or train ticket through a link in their search results.
Why is Momondo so cheap?
Momondo takes a smaller commission from the airlines, hotels, and other travel providers, and that savings is often passed on to the consumer. Additionally, Momondo works with a lot of smaller OTAs that sometime undercut the competition on select categories as a marketing tactic.
Is Momondo trustworthy?
Momondo itself is a reputable company but it's important to remember that Momondo itself isn't the one selling you the flight, hotel room, or other service. They are simply showing you the available options and when you go to book you'll be passed on to an online travel agency (OTA), which is where things can get complicated. Some of these smaller OTAs don't have great customer service, and if something goes wrong (like a flight disruption) it can be hard to reach someone for help, or you may get passed back and forth between the OTA and airline with each claiming its the other's responsibility to help you. We recommend booking with the airline directly when it offers a great price, but sometime the price you can find on Momondo is so much lower that it's worth taking the small risk and booking with the OTA.
