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New airfare site for international travelers has some flaws
 Find Discount Airfare Deals
How to Save on Your Next Flight
Traveler Tested: FlightStats.com
 How Would You Rate Vayama.com?
In the all-too-crowded skies of the online travel industry, is there room for another airfare site? Travelers in search of airfare deals already have to wade through a sea of aggregators, traditional booking engines, auction sites, watchdog sites, bargain sites, official airline Web sites, even our own Bargain Box. Could yet another site really save us time, energy and money?
The founders of Vayama.com think so. The site, which debuted in June 2007 in beta form and just made its official launch on February 13, positions itself as an alternative to other airfare sites for international travelers. While most existing sites offer both domestic and international airfare, Vayama seeks to provide a greater breadth and depth of itineraries for folks looking to travel abroad.
Does Vayama's international focus give it a leg up on the competition, or is it just one more tired entrant in an already crowded field? For us, the answer was mixed. We found great savings on certain itineraries, but we also hit some major roadblocks when testing the site. Read on for our full review -- and our overall grade.
 The Basics
Vayama's tagline is "international travel solved." By focusing solely on international flights, Vayama aims to provide "a massive selection of airlines, flights and fares, many never previously available online, so you can find the lowest prices and best schedule options." While the site's main feature is its international flight booking engine, it also offers destination guides as well as practical information on passports, visas, and health and safety issues.
Editor's Note: Despite the self-avowed international focus of the site, we did get flight results when we tried searching a domestic itinerary within the United States. For the purposes of this story, however, we tested only the site's key claim: that it offers better deals and more schedule options on international trips than its competitors.
Competitors
There are dozens of flight search engines online, from the big three booking sites (Expedia, Travelocity and Orbitz) to aggregators (Kayak, Sidestep, Yahoo! Farechase) and beyond (CheapTickets, Hotwire, Flights.com). In the exclusively international arena, FlyCheapAbroad -- like Vayama -- is geared specifically toward U.S. travelers looking to book international airfares.
What sets Vayama apart? In addition to the claim that the site offers better deals and more schedule options, Vayama also touts its map feature, which allows you to visualize your flight options before booking.
 Test Drive
How It Stacks Up: We tested Vayama's flight booking capacity on six different international itineraries, from the most basic of roundtrips (New York - London) to more complicated multi-city routes (New York - Tokyo - Bangkok - New York). For comparative purposes, we also tested the same itineraries on three other sites: Travelocity (a traditional booking engine), Kayak (an aggregator) and FlyCheapAbroad (a site designed specifically for international travel).
Our results were mixed. Vayama came out on top in two of our six test cases; the site found the cheapest fares from Chicago to Buenos Aires (as well as flights that didn't show up on Kayak) and saved us nearly $200 over any of the competitors on flights from Miami to Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. On the latter itinerary, even the most expensive of Vayama's results was cheaper than anything the other sites gave us.
On two other fairly common itineraries (New York to London and Los Angeles - Sydney - Auckland - Los Angeles), Vayama was in line with the other sites in terms of fares and itineraries, though Vayama's fares were usually $5 or $10 higher.
When it came to our last two itineraries, we hit a few roadblocks. One of our biggest quibbles about Vayama was the lack of a "search nearby airports" option. However, it seems that in some cases the site does this for you whether you want it to or not. For example, we were impressed to see a fare of $579 roundtrip (including all taxes and fees) from Philadelphia to Barcelona -- until we took a closer look at the itinerary. The second half of our departure leg was a nonstop flight on Continental from Newark to Barcelona, while the first half (which also displayed Continental's logo) was a flight from an "airport" called Philadelphia Rail Station, with a flight time of 59 minutes aboard an "unknown aircraft." Of course, this wasn't a flight at all but a train ride on Amtrak (Continental's air/rail codeshare partner).
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