The key to finding great deals online is to shop around, compare prices and try out different routes and departure dates to see what the search returns.

When searching for low airfares travelers can start by visiting big travel sites like Orbitz, Expedia and Travelocity. These are travel search engine that allow you to compare airfares across several airlines. Each search might return different results but it’s good enough to get an idea about the airfare pricings.

Travelocity is one of the established leaders in searching for low airfare on the Internet. They offer fast access to dozens of airfares from various airlines and are known to offer some of the lowest airfares for almost any destination.

Expedia search provides detailed information about each chosen flight and the best prices.

Orbitz is also one of the most popular travel search websites and is great when looking for low airfare. They have a very large database of airlines and their search result is quite varied and vast.

There are also other lesser known travel search engines that take your information and query other travel sites using the proper search syntax. The only difference being, these website usually redirect you to the airline's website where the actual booking has to be done.

One such website is Best Fares, which is a travel member site that lists low-cost deals on flights and reveals some great travel opportunities. While you do have to be a member to buy a ticket you do not need one for just doing a search.

Another good method is to use meta-search engines like Kayak and Sidestep to search for low airfares. These sites go out and search other sites and compile fares on one screen.

Kayak.com is a new search engine and it combs many web sites for low fares and provides links to places where the bookings can be made online.

SideStep is a software that has to be downloaded from the site and installed on to your browser. This immediately opens a matching search every time you query on other search engine like Travelocity, Experdia and Orbitz for airfares. Side step deals directly with the airlines and has many special offers and last-minute deals that may not be available elsewhere.