External Resources

A roundup of useful travel resources and applications we’ve come across.

Cheap Flights & Mistake Fares

YEG Deals

Automated aggregation of cheap flight offers departing YEG (has sister sites for all major flight hubs in Canada, eg. YULdeals.com, YYCdeals.com, etc).

Scott’s Cheap Flights

Email alert signup for cheap flight deals departing your chosen airport(s).

Secret Flying

Specifically searches and aggregates mistake and error fares.

Airfarewatchdog

Aggregates flight deals from around the world.

Mighty Travels

Provides real time notifications of error fares and hotel rates for subscription fee of $6.20 per month.

Award Search Engines

Expert Flyer

Premier award search engine, user friendly and cost effective. However cannot search award space for Cathay, Japan (JAL), or Qatar Airlines.

Cost: $4.99 (basic) or $9.99 (premium) monthly.

Award Nexus

Search Engine for finding First class, Business class, or complex route flight mileage awards.

Cost: $59-249 USD, based on points not time.

KVS Availability Tool

Desktop application. Uses airline reservation systems to view available award seats across all 3 major airline alliances.

Cost: $35-75 USD annually.

AwardLogic

Award search engine that lets you see the number of points required for a specific route, across multiple loyalty programs.

Cost: $4.99 USD (daily), $19.99 USD (monthly), or $199 USD (annually).

Hotel Aggregators, Discount Sites, & Sharing Economy

Trivago

Hotel search and price comparison.

Booking.com

Dutch online travel agency for lodging reservations & other travel products,

Agoda

Online travel agency and metasearch engine for hotels, vacation rentals, flights, and airport transfer.

Hotels Combined

Hotel metasearch engine, owned by Booking Holdings.

AirBNB

Online marketplace for peer to peer vacation rentals.

Hostelworld

Leading online travel agency specific to hostel market.

Couch Surfing

Global hospitality exchange service, no-cost version of AirBNB.

Holiday Swap

“Tinder of travel”, lets you match with other vacation homes and swap houses with each other for specified dates.

Hotels.com

Major online hotel booking website, owned by Expedia. See our guide to Hotels.com.

Priceline

Priceline.com is an online travel agency for finding discount rates for travel-related purchases such as airline tickets and hotel stays. 

Currency Conversion & ATM Services

See our travel tutorial on foreign cash and currency solutions for a discussion of the best credit cards, prepaid cards and conversion services available.  

Revolut

Currency conversion service and reloadable prepaid debit Visa Platinum card. Access to interbank currency exchange rates, free ATM withdrawal (up to $400/$800 monthly).

Stack

Re-loadable prepaid debit Mastercard with no foreign ATM withdrawal fees or foreign currency exchange fees.

Wise

Currency conversion service for sending money abroad. Money can be loaded with various methods but must be transferred to a bank account.

Conotoxia

Polish competitor to Revolut and TransferWise. Has a payment card like Revolut but only for Poland residents.

Bill Payment Services

PaySimply

Pay bills to the CRA, municipalities, colleges and universities, and utility companies using their credit cards at a 2.50% fee.

Plastiq

Pay your bills using Visa, MasterCard, or American Express, charging no more than 2.85% for every transaction to a recipient in Canada.

PayTM

PayTM has a large database of major billers like the CRA, municipalities, universities, and utility companies. Available via mobile app only.

Melio Pay

Free and easy to use payment solution allowing US small businesses to pay any domestic business expense by credit card, even where cards are not accepted.