Backchannel:

Over the past several years, the conventional wisdom has been that cruising the net would yield the best prices in the travel, hotel, and car rental spaces. There’s been a tidal shift in the travel industry, to a point where most of us use aggregators to book our trips.

Over time, however, the convention has flipped. And as the business models that on which these aggregators rely are getting tighter, the deals are getting worse. How can you be certain you’re getting the lowest quote? The short answer is, you can’t.

I haven’t had to travel for a while but, when I did, I used aggregator sites heavily. But I always checked with the individual airline before I made the sale just in case. Looks like that’s even more true now.