WayAway Product Review
Online Services . Product ReviewsWayAway Product Review
Our WayAway Product Review will cover what WayAway is all about and how it looks. We’ll tell you why we like it, what we don’t like about it, and everything you need to know to use it effectively.
WayAway is a flight aggregator that displays the best airline tickets and hotel deals. It is backed by over ten years of experience in the travel industry, working with brands like Booking.com, TripAdvisor, and Expedia. The key feature of WayAway is the Plus membership plan which gives travelers up to 10% cashback on their bookings.
The innovative search compares flight deals offered by all major U.S. and global airlines and travel agencies. While offering the best flight deals for specific travel dates, WayAway also shows more affordable tickets on alternative dates.
When you first navigate WayAway’s website, you see boxes where you can search for flights. The first thing I notice about this search interface is that I can select a multi-city route, similar to how I plan our road trips. But we’ll get to that in a few minutes.
If I click on the Hotels tab, the search box changes to allow me to search for hotels instead of flights.
This is great because I usually take road trips as I’m not particularly eager to fly, and I’ll use the hotel feature a lot more often.
WayAway Product Review – Booking Hotels
Okay, for the sake of demonstration, let’s say Beck and I are planning our next road trip to New Orleans, Louisiana.
I enter New Orleans, and it gives me a list of options.
Either I can choose from a few hotels, or I can select the city. I wanted to see more options than they had listed, so I chose the city.
Next, I have the prompts to enter the check-in date, check-out date, and the number of guests. So, I fill those in, click the Find hotels button, and select one week and two guests.
I noticed that the calendar feature works very similarly to Expedia’s. You click a date once for the check-in date, and then you click a second date for the check-out date. That’s pretty cool because it prevents you from having to click in the Check-out field separately to close and re-open the calendar.
I did notice a small checkbox right under the Search flights button which indicated Booking.com would open, but I didn’t see that on the hotel side of things. Nonetheless, when I click Book hotel, Booking.com opens in a new tab and gives me a list of 198 properties found in New Orleans.
I see on this screen that WayAway has a partnership with Booking.com, which explains why I have gone to a different site. From here, I can use all of the features of Booking.com to check hotel availability and prices and book my stay.
WayAway Product Review – Searching Flights
Back on the Flights tab, suppose my bestie and I will fly to Iceland, and we’ll fly out of Orlando on those dates. Let’s see if this works the same as the hotels do.
I enter Orlando, Iceland, and choose my dates and passengers. This time, when I entered the destination of Iceland, it presented me with a list of cities below the search box, along with little thumbnails from those cities, I presume.
I noticed that only one of those cities gives me a price so I will select that one. I chose Reykjavik and entered the dates and passengers.
Before clicking the Search flights button, I see two new sections below: the Flights and Best prices sections. Under Flights, I see Price chart and Get cashback on your flight. Those sound intriguing so let’s check them out.
Price Chart
Under Price, I check out the Price chart and find that it pulls up a calendar feature, allowing me to play with the dates and options a little bit. I can turn Direct flight off and on and the Only including baggage option. Presumably, these two options may help save a little money.
I can also select the magnifying glasses over different dates to adjust the Best Prices list for those dates. This helps find the best prices. However, if the Price chart showed prices on it, that would be much more effective and user-friendly. I could only get a Price unknown bubble for any dates I selected.
Get cashback on your flight
When I click the Get cashback on your flight option, I am prompted to purchase WayAway+. For $5 each month, I can get cashback on flights, hotels, travel experts, and hidden gems. That sounds interesting, and I would love to earn cash back on my travels. But this is a WayAway Product Review, so we’ll return to that later in a different post.
Glancing through the information it gives me on this sales page, I see that purchasing the Plus plan would make the tools more flexible and activate those filters above, which would show me the price adjustments on the screen instead of magnifying glasses. Pretty convenient!
Best Prices
Under Best Prices, I can see the top two cheapest options, along with the airline, flight duration, price, and how much cash back I would earn if I subscribed to WayAway+. Of course, there’s another prompt between the two options to sign up.
Now, I know from experience that Spirit charges extra fees per bag and such, so while it is in the top two options, it may not necessarily be the cheapest in the long run. So, I’m going to look at more tickets. Below the top two options is a button to Show all tickets. Let’s see what that gives us.
After a minute or so, a new page loads, giving a long list of available flights with the same information as the first two on the previous page. It also gives you a menu on the left-hand side that allows you to adjust your preferences regarding baggage, layovers, airlines, etc.
It also gives me a Price alert option which allows me to set the parameters and filters. Then after entering my email address and clicking the Create price alert button, it prompts me to log in to watch price changes. Now, I haven’t yet signed up for this service, so I don’t have login credentials at this point.
WayAway Product Review – Explore
Back on the main page, if you scroll down instead of using the flights and hotels feature, you get some suggestions of places to explore. The first section shows Asheville, North Carolina alongside another prompt to upgrade to WayAway+.
Below those two is the Explore national parks section, with four national parks listed. I’m not sure if they are selected randomly or how they are chosen to be displayed there. Anyway, under those four are two cities you could explore.
Clicking on any one of those boxes gives you that location in a nutshell. First, you’ll see the nearest airports. Yellowstone National Park has three to choose from.
Airports
Clicking on one of the airports will give you the Price chart and Get cashback on your flight options as if you had searched for a regular flight. But below that, it provides you with Featured spots for the airport area. So, you could visit some excellent stops on your way to your actual destination! How cool is that?
You have eight locations displayed and then you can click the map button to see where they are. The map allows you to zoom in and out to see how far away they are from each other. Perhaps you could visit a few of them on the way!
Location in a nutshell
After the airports, you’ll see a brief description of the location and then four of the top spots at the location. Here again, you can click the places on the map button to see all of the spots at that location and the distance between them.
Below the Top spots, you get detailed information on why you should go there, what else you could do there, the best time to visit, how long to stay, what accommodations are available, and essential things to know before you go. This is a beneficial feature that I wish was available in my Roadtrippers subscription. I may have to start using both tools to plan my trips.
WayAway Product Review – Plan your next adventure
The next section on the main page is the Plan your next adventure section. This is a price map with a button to explore the map. When you click that button, you’re taken to a map and a listing of all countries with prices listed next to them.
Clicking on any countries listed will zoom the map to that country precisely. Then you will see prices to fly to certain locations within that specific country. Flying within the United States seems to be super inexpensive right now. These prices are hard to believe. I bet they would change if I actually plugged in some dates though.
WayAway Product Review – Discover Somewhere New
Back on the main page again, the next section is the Discover Somewhere New section. Right now, it shows How about Boston? Then it gives you some spots in Boston that might interest you. I hope one day I’m able to just pull up this app and plan a trip to wherever it suggests. This would mean I’ve seen all the places I want to see and can still afford to see more.
You can also click on the Discover Boston button to see Boston in a nutshell. Like before, this gives you the flight information and Price chart at the top. Then you get a map where you can open it up to see more places in that area. You also get the Featured spots section like before with 8 thumbnails and a button to open the map for a few more.
Unlike before, you get a few more sections. Now you get Instaspots which seem to be great places to take photos. But it looks like that section requires you to subscribe to WayAway+, again… this is the WayAway Product Review. We’ll get to Plus eventually.
The next section on this page is the Local favorites and Hotels sections. Both offer a few thumbnails and a button to open up the map. The last section on this page is Our insiders in Boston. You’re advised to follow them to get inspired for your trip, which links to their Instagram accounts.
WayAway Product Review – Choose Your Destination
The last section of the main page is the Choose your Destination section. If you click on the Great idea button, it takes you back to the top of the page for you to enter your destination into the flight search boxes to book your airfare.
Below that is a list of popular destinations. Clicking the tiny arrows to expand those popular locations will give you listings for flights from popular cities to the capital city of that country.
What I Like & Dislike
There’s a lot to like about this tool. It is user-friendly and responsive. Pages load fast, and it even has a dark mode! I love that you can explore new destinations and see what else is out there for areas you’re traveling to. Log in using my Google or Facebook account, which I like.
I like the flight and hotel search feature better than my go-to tool. So, I may end up switching. I absolutely love the detailed information that you can get for the different locations. That is something that I will definitely be using to plan my trips from now on.
There isn’t much to dislike about this tool. I have two things, really, that’s it. Some cool features are only available if you pay for the tool. I’m not too fond of that, but I get it. It costs money to build these tools and maintain the services they give.
Lastly, unlike Roadtrippers, this tool doesn’t have nearly as many road trip stops to explore. It seems only to offer famous, iconic type places. I’m more of an off-the-beaten-path sort of gal. So is Beck.
Overall, I do highly recommend using WayAway to plan your next trip. If you’re one of those who fly to a destination and stay there for a few days visiting the traditional places, this tool is perfect for you. If you want to add some less popular sites to your trip, go check out Roadtrippers.
Either way, enjoy your trip and travel safe!
All the best,
Kris M.
Founder of Road Trip Stops
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