Search for flights on KAYAK and you’ll see three filters: Cheapest, Best and Quickest. Cheapest and Quickest are straightforward, but what does Best mean?
We’ll explain how KAYAK defines Best and ranks flights so you can choose the filter that matches your priorities, whether that’s price, duration or convenience.
In this article
How does KAYAK rank flight results?
KAYAK is a metasearch engine. Enter your search criteria (departure, destination and dates) on KAYAK and in just a few seconds, KAYAK trawls hundreds of travel sites – airlines, online travel agents, booking platforms, aggregators, travel management companies and global distribution systems – to locate and present you with real-time results.
You can then refine your search using filters. Choose your preferred airlines and airports, set convenient departure and arrival times, go direct or add stopovers. You can even set a budget range. These factors all affect what flights you see, with flight results updating dynamically as you add each filter.
What does the KAYAK ‘Best’ flight results filter mean?
‘Best’ flights on KAYAK focus on giving you the optimum balance of price and convenience. Several different factors influence what make the most relevant options for your search, including:
Price – which flights are cheapest
Flight duration – which are quickest and have the fewest stopovers
Distance between origin and destination – which routes are shortest
Number of travelers – how many people you’re booking for
The context of how you started searching – like whether you’re using a mobile phone or computer or if you opened a shared link. For example, a flight link shared directly with you may be pinned nearer the top of the results page.
KAYAK weighs each of these factors differently depending on where you’re searching for and when you aim to travel.
For example, if two flights are very similar in price but the cheapest one takes much longer than the other, we’ll pay more attention to the duration than the price and rank the faster flight higher up in your results.
Best results also take into account what we call ‘diversity logic’. This means you’ll see a range of different airlines and departure times so you can compare options up front .
And if you have a preferred airline, departure time or other factors to consider, just use the filters or Ask AI to narrow your search even further.
How to compare the cheapest, quickest and best flight results.
The easiest way to explain how it works is with an example.
Here are the ‘Cheapest’, ‘Best’ and ‘Quickest’ search results for one of the most popular routes from the US: A one-way flight from New York to London (flying in October 2026):
In this search we’ve received three different results for the Cheapest, Best and Quickest filters.
The ‘Cheapest’ flight is $202 but flight time is an energy-sapping 10 hours and 25 minutes. That’s because it makes a stopover at Reykjavik Keflavik International Airport.
At $204, the ‘Best’ flight may be more expensive but its duration is just seven hours, as it flies direct. Paying the extra $2 to save nearly three and a half hours of travel is a no-brainer. This is why we’ve ranked the more expensive flight as the ‘Best’ option.
Lastly, choosing the ‘Quickest’ flight costs close to a third more than the ‘Best’ flight. Yet that extra $91 spend saves you only 10 minutes of travel time. Again, the cost-to-time-saving ratio is clear.
Without the ‘Best’ filter option working its magic, this flight balancing value and speed may not have been as immediately obvious in your results list.
That means you could have spent longer searching for it. Or, even worse, you may have ended up paying over the odds for the quickest flight or traveling for hours more to save just a couple of dollars.
What if the same flight is sold by several booking sites?
As KAYAK searches so many different travel platforms, it’s common to find the same flight available from several places at once. These can come from online travel agencies or airlines and prices may differ depending on the platform.
To save you from comparing similar results for the same itinerary, KAYAK groups them into one result under a single itinerary. The cheapest provider is always highlighted first.
If several providers offer the same flight at the same price, we may rank them based on factors like how often travelers choose them and our commercial agreements with providers. We also work hard to recommend and prioritize the providers that are upfront about their pricing and offer better booking experiences.
FAQs
No, ‘Best’ flight search results aren’t always more expensive than ‘Cheapest’ results. ‘Best’ results are a balance of multiple factors including flight duration, number of travelers, origin and destination, as well as price. If there are no other factors that make a more expensive flight better than a cheaper one, then ‘Best’ and ‘Cheapest’ will return the same results.
To find the best fares with KAYAK, enter your origin, destination and travel dates into the search field on kayak.com and press ‘Search’. The results page will default to the ‘Best’ filter option for flights that offer the optimum balance of price and convenience.
To find the cheapest fares with KAYAK, enter your origin, destination and travel dates into the search field on kayak.com and press ‘Search’. At the top of the results page, select the ‘Cheapest’ filter option and the fares will update dynamically into order, with the cheapest at the top of the page.
Conclusion.
When searching for flights on KAYAK, the cheapest result might not always be your best option. The ‘Best’ flight results represent a calculation of value based not only on price but also convenience. They’re a helpful, simple way to help you find the right flight in the least time.
