Better coverage starts with better sources.
Research checked October 19, 2026. This is an assessment of access, not a claim that these providers are connected. No production credentials were available during the build.
Our initial adapters use the published Duffel and AirGateway contracts. Both are disabled under the no-new-cost policy. No approved free production source is connected. Neither provides a consumer checkout URL for a selected flight, and AirGateway’s child-age shopping contract remains unverified. These limitations are visible in the search.
No-cost access
Read the current no-cost access findings and provider requirements.
KAYAK offers a free sandbox, while production requires affiliate approval and a confirmed agreement. Travelpayouts requires 50,000 monthly active users and prohibits background collection and combining its search API with other flight metasearch APIs. Its cached price feeds cannot meet this app’s live-fare promise. Accounts and saved trips work independently of flight-provider access.
The source ranking
| Source | Decision | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Duffel | Disabled: cost policy | Self-service test access; approved live organization. GDS, NDC and LCC. $3/order + 1% Managed Content; $0.005 per excess search beyond 1,500:1 look-to-book. |
| AirGateway | Disabled: cost policy | Certified agency access. Published €100/month + €1/booking; conflicting implementation-fee language requires a quote. Exact child-age input remains unverified. |
| Mystifly / TBO | Commercial procurement | Potential consolidator/net fare complement. Production access, minimum commitments and pricing require a commercial quote. |
| Skyscanner | Approval required | Strong airline/OTA comparison and booking links. Published access criteria include 100K monthly active users. Live API can include upstream cached prices. |
| KAYAK Affiliate Network | Approval required | Current partner flight API and sandbox exist. Confirm that a competing combined search product is an allowed use. No guaranteed self-service production entitlement. |
| Travelport / Sabre | Enterprise agreement | Trials and certification tools exist. Production inventory, credentials, quotas and price depend on seller agreements. |
| Amadeus Enterprise | Enterprise agreement | Self-Service was retired in July 2026. Historical free-tier articles are not a current onboarding path. |
| Travelfusion | Commercial procurement | Potential low-cost/direct-connect breadth. Contract pricing and redistribution rights must be confirmed. |
| Expedia Rapid Flights | Approval required | Flight shopping, price confirmation, booking and servicing are documented; production access is partner-led. |
| Direct airline NDC | Selective future integration | Airline-specific commercial approval and certification. Continuous pricing can help, but Duffel may already expose the same channel. |
| Kiwi Tequila | Invitation only | New partnerships are invitation-only; not a dependable new-account launch requirement. |
| ATPCO / Tripadvisor | Excluded from fare inventory | Fare filings do not establish live seat availability; Tripadvisor content APIs are not a verified live fare search source. |
The ceiling, honestly
An uncredentialed installation returns zero live fares. Duffel alone has no inventory advantage over Duffel. Adding sources can reveal different airline offers or agency prices, but no savings percentage against Duffel or Kayak has been established. Airport and date flexibility must also be included in the baseline for a fair comparison.
Private fare access, distribution rights and ticketing relationships matter more than the number of APIs. Historical quotes supplied for the reference trip are calibration only; they never appear as current results.
Freshness and comparison
Farehound uses live production endpoints, retains source IDs and fetch timestamps, and rejects missing or expired quotes. A recent response can be reused for at most 30 seconds without changing its original timestamp. Every quote disappears after the earlier of its provider expiry or 120 seconds from fetch. There is no stale fallback.
Deduplication groups the same physical itinerary and cabin, then preserves the cheapest offer’s own baggage and fare conditions. Price is the returned party total; the per-person number is a labeled average. Currency conversions are never estimated.
No unapproved scraping
KAYAK and Expedia restrict scraping without permission. Google’s terms prohibit automated access contrary to machine-readable restrictions, and its relevant Flights paths are disallowed. Farehound uses no scraping, proxy rotation, CAPTCHA bypass, or cached trend feed as live inventory.
Download the complete ranking, access paths, costs, latency caveats and citations · Airline, consolidator and terms research