We test new sale flight website for deals on Qantas, Jetstar, Virgin Australia and Tiger Airways

By Kate Midena NEW Aussie website claims to help you "get the cheapest sale airfare without paying any fees" - but does it work?

GetFlight

A NEW Aussie flight deals website claims to help you "get the cheapest sale airfare without paying any fees" - but does it work?

Getflight.com.au tracks sale fares from each of the four major domestic carriers - Qantas, Jetstar, Virgin Australia and Tiger Airways - as well as some international airlines, and publishes them online.

The site aims to have up to 1200 sale airfares daily, taking in about 100 cities in more than 30 countries.

To see if it works we searched and compared three national and international flights, from three different carriers.

Our first trial was a GetFlight find, featuring a Qantas flight from Adelaide to Nadi, Fiji, for $498 one way. Viewing the deal and being redirected to the Qantas page to book it took all of 30 seconds.

On the Qantas site, we were able to find same deal, but not from a "sale airfare" or "cheap flights" section.

Rather, we had to enter all the flight details manually, and were able to find the cheaper flights because we matched up the dates of the deal found on GetFlight with the Qantas search engine. While the process of finding these cheaper flights only took 10 minutes, it was much more fiddly to use than the GetFlight site.

GetFlight also hosted a deal offering flights from Melbourne to New York for $1850 on V Australia.

On the Virgin Australia website, it took us 10 minutes - and a lot of looking at a blank "searching" screen - before we were able to track down the same deal.

A $29 Tiger Airways flight from Sydney to Brisbane was easier to find on Tiger's website thanks to their "latest deals" section, but the same flight was found instantly on GetFlight by entering "Sydney", "Brisbane" and "Any Price". Clicking the "Get Flight" link redirected us to Tiger's booking page instantly.

These deals were all found on flight aggregator sites including WotFlight, again by searching the airline and sale dates given to us by GetFlight. We were eventually able to find the sale prices, but we were charged a $16.95 booking fee - GetFlight redirects you to the airline's website for purchasing, so booking fees are avoided.

It is this strategy that the site's founder Ian Cumming says will ensure customers get the lowest price possible - customers won't have to pay a middle man, they won't have to pay sign up fees, and they are guaranteed to be viewing sale flights only, he says.

But Mr Cumming said that GetFlight was "not an online travel agent".

"We're not determining the fares," he said. "We're simply simplifying sale airfares for value-seeking Australians looking to travel."

GetFlight has tried to simplify the sale notification process as well, by suggesting consumers subscribe to the routes that interest them.

According to a recent US survey from Savings.com, seven out of 10 consumers said they received up to and above 20 deal emails every day. Because of the difficulty in managing the influx of offers, nearly half of those surveyed admit that they end up deleting the daily emails.

By subscribing specifically to routes of interest, consumers will receive one email notification if and when their destination goes on sale - just make sure you keep your eyes peeled to avoid accidental email deletion.

The launch of GetFlight's comes on the back of a report released by Flight Centre last week, claiming that airfares to popular holiday spots like Bali and Fiji are cheaper now than they were two years ago.

Flight Centre compared 30 international airfares advertised from Sydney on May 18, 2011, with fares to the same locations two years ago - at the height of the discounting war after the global financial crisis.

Fifteen of the fares were found to be cheaper than two years ago, with many significantly discounted. Six other fares had increased by 10 per cent or less, and only one fare increased by more than 25 per cent.

But while there are bargains to be had - especially within Australia - flights to London, Paris and Los Angeles had all gone up in the period.

See for yourself: Visit GetFlight's website

Report: Discount airfares continue

Escape: Australia's most luxurious stays

Super cattle-class: Jets to fit more than 1000 people

Holiday ideas: Take a short break