From the Mint website:

“Mint is the freshest, most intelligent way for you to manage your money online. Not only is Mint free, it saves you money. While existing personal finance software “solutions” require hours to set up, a passion for accounting (is that possible?) and hours of weekly maintenance, Mint is virtually effortless.

With Mint, you can be fully up and running in less than five minutes. After that, revolutionary, patent-pending Mint technology does the rest, with virtually no more work required. It automatically pulls together your bank, credit union and credit card data, and provides up-to-date and amazingly accurate views of your financial life - from the big picture to specific details, in a friendly and intuitive way.

In addition, Mint goes beyond visibility and analysis; providing personalized money-saving and money-making suggestions. Mint provides users an average of $1,000 in savings opportunities during their first session. Plus, Mint is accessible from your desktop, laptop or cellphone.”

website: Mint.com

editor’s note: I’ve been using mint for a couple of days now, and I’m really impressed at how easy it was to set up and use. The site is very functional and it does help me to keep track of my spending and finances. I can’t believe it’s free. Well done, Mint.

From the FareCompare.com website:

“Our system contains over 30 million airfares and we process millions of fare changes throughout the day. We provide information on our site to empower each user with tools normally only available to fare analysts at the airlines. Our goal is to provide the information you need to make the best informed decision before you jump to the airline site, online travel agency, or meta-search engine (Kayak, SideStep, Mobissimo) to finalize your booking.”

FareCompare.com

From the Farecast.com website:

“Farecast.com is the smart travel search site that helps you buy with confidence. Launched in 2006, Farecast.com empowers you to know when to buy with airfare predictions and know where to stay with the hotel Rate Key™.

Farecast was recognized as one of Web 2.0’s “Best Travel Sites,” one of PC World’s 20 Most Innovative Products, “Best of What’s New” by Popular Science, one of TIME Magazine’s “50 Coolest Websites” and one of the “Best Trip Planning Tools” by Business Week readers. Farecast is headquartered in Seattle, WA.”

Farecast.com
Farecast Blog

From the Cheapair.com website:

“the nation’s leading aggregator of airline fares and discounts since 1989. With our one-of-a-kind proprietary fare search technology, we bring you the ability to simultaneously search:

All of the airlines published and sale fares– the fares you would get by calling a travel agency or the airline directly.

The “internet-only” specials of major airlines like American, Continental, Delta, Northwest, United, and US Airways, which are normally promoted and offered on their own web sites or through the travel mega-sites.

The 10,000+ negotiated “bulk fares” that we have contracted which offer discounts for international travel in economy, business, and first class and some last minute domestic trips, too.

The inventory of over a dozen wholesalers (”consolidators”) across the country who buy blocks of seats at discount rates and distribute those seats through travel agencies.

Our fare spiders search all over the internet to find the lowest fares…so you don’t have to.”

CheapAir.com

Airlines lower airfares every day without advertising them. They will tell you about these “hidden” fare reductions and alert you to other sale fares.

From the airfarewatchdog.com website:

“Other sites use computer programs to find and list fares. We don’t. We use real people, who actually compare airfares on airlines that the computer programs can’t, such as Southwest and JetBlue (you’ll never see a Southwest fare on the big travel sites and only a few, such as Kayak and Sidestep, list JetBlue). Plus we include smaller airlines you may never even have heard of, like Allegiant Air, which sells fares only on its own site.

In fact, we go out of our way to tell you if a fare is lower on Southwest Airlines, which does not participate in our affiliate program (explained below), because we’re more interested in building our reputation for honesty than making a buck.

But real people must be paid, somehow. And if you find we’re saving you money, you can help.”

Airfarewatchdog.com
airfare watchdog blog