At first glance, the amount of thought and care that goes into Airfarewatchdog  may not be obvious, especially when comparing the site to the other sites that list, rather than merely search for, low airfares. Like Airfarewatchdog, these fare listing sites do the fare searching for you, and when they identify what they believe is a low fare or a fare that has gone down from the previous level, they post them. 

Most of these sites list more fares than we do. However, we believe in quality over quantity. Here are several ways that Airfarewatchdog is different (and, we think, better) than other fare alert or fare list sites. 

1. We check seat availability for the fares we list. Many newly lowered fares have little or no seat availability. We try booking seats just as you, the consumer, would and if seats are scarce we say so, or if they're virtually non-existent, we don't list that fare. Other sites don't do this.

2. We list fares on all airlines, including Ryanair and easyJet, as well as those on larger airlines.

3. We list airline web site-only fares. Increasingly, airlines are reserving their very best fares only for their own Web sites, and these do not appear in computer-generated third-party fare databases. We hunt down these fares and list them. No one else does this.

4. We specify when a flight is nonstop, because given a choice, that's what most consumers want. 

5. We shop for value, not just the lowest fare. A slightly higher fare that's available for travel during the summer might be better value than a lower fare available for off-peak travel periods.

6. We show fares from every conceivable airport that's a reasonable drive from the original search airport, all on one easy-to-navigate page. For example, our London page shows fares from all London Airports all on one page.

7. We only list fares that we think are reasonable. If a fare on a particular route is in our opinion abnormally high we won't list it.

8. We check fares every day, throughout the day. Some fare listing sites show you fares they found yesterday, or even 5 days ago.