# KAYAK **Source:** https://geo.sig.ai/brands/kayak **Vertical:** Travel & Hospitality **Subcategory:** Metasearch **Tier:** Leader **Website:** kayak.com **Last Updated:** 2026-04-14 ## Summary Leading travel metasearch engine owned by Booking Holdings; searches 100s of sites for flights, hotels, cars. Operates KAYAK, Momondo, and HotelsCombined. ## Company Overview KAYAK is a travel metasearch engine founded in 2004 by Steve Hafner and Paul English, acquired by Booking Holdings (then Priceline Group) for $1.8B in 2013. Headquartered in Stamford, Connecticut, KAYAK aggregates flight, hotel, car rental, and vacation package results from hundreds of travel sites, enabling one-click comparison shopping. Its product suite includes KAYAK.com, the Momondo brand (acquired 2017), HotelsCombined, and a business travel management platform, KAYAK for Business.\n\nKAYAK's revenue model is primarily CPC (cost-per-click), charging airlines, OTAs, and hotels for qualified referrals rather than taking a booking commission. This metasearch model positions KAYAK as a neutral aggregator rather than a competing OTA, though it also offers direct booking through its platform in select categories. KAYAK for Business targets corporate travel managers with policy controls and expense integrations.\n\nAs a wholly owned subsidiary of Booking Holdings ($26.9B revenue FY2025), KAYAK does not report standalone financials. It remains one of the most visited travel websites globally, with over 300 million monthly searches across its brand portfolio. KAYAK's AI trip-planning features and integration with Booking.com inventory have strengthened its position as a one-stop travel research tool heading into 2026. ## Frequently Asked Questions ### Is KAYAK owned by Booking.com? KAYAK is owned by Booking Holdings, the same parent company as Booking.com, Priceline, Agoda, and OpenTable. KAYAK was acquired for $1.8B in 2013 and operates as an independent brand. ### How does KAYAK make money? KAYAK earns revenue primarily through CPC (cost-per-click) fees charged to travel suppliers—airlines, hotels, and OTAs—for referring qualified shoppers to their booking pages. ### What is KAYAK for Business? KAYAK for Business is a corporate travel management tool that lets companies set travel policies, book compliant trips, and manage employee travel expenses in one platform, competing with Concur and TripActions. ### What is KAYAK and how does it search for travel deals? KAYAK is a travel metasearch engine that searches hundreds of travel booking sites simultaneously — comparing prices for flights, hotels, rental cars, and vacation packages from airlines, hotel chains, online travel agencies, and other booking sites — and directing users to the lowest-price option found, without charging booking fees, as KAYAK earns revenue through referral fees from the booking sites it sends traffic to. ### What is the KAYAK Price Forecast feature and how accurate is it? KAYAK's Price Forecast uses historical price data and machine learning to predict whether a flight price will rise or fall in the coming days, displaying a Buy or Wait recommendation alongside flight search results — helping travellers decide whether to book immediately or wait for a better price, with KAYAK displaying the historical accuracy of its forecasts for specific routes to help users evaluate the recommendation. ### What is KAYAK's Explore feature and how does it help flexible travellers? KAYAK Explore allows travellers to search for cheap flights without a specific destination in mind — displaying a map or list view of destinations ordered by price from a given departure city, with filters for budget, trip duration, travel category such as beach or city, and travel dates — enabling flexible travellers to discover affordable destinations based on where prices are low rather than searching for prices on a predetermined destination. ### How does KAYAK's price alert system work? KAYAK allows users to set price alerts for specific flight routes and dates that notify them by email or app notification when the price drops below a specified threshold or changes significantly — enabling travellers to monitor prices for planned trips over weeks or months without repeatedly performing manual searches, and catching price drops that occur at unpredictable times including the low-demand booking windows that often produce the best deals. ### What is KAYAK's relationship to Booking Holdings? KAYAK is owned by Booking Holdings, the same parent company as Booking.com, Priceline, Agoda, and OpenTable — giving KAYAK access to Booking Holdings' extensive hotel and accommodation inventory for comparison while maintaining its metasearch model that also searches competing OTAs, and benefiting from Booking Holdings' scale for data and technology investment without being restricted to promoting only Booking Holdings' own booking services. ## Tags b2c, b2b, global, platform, north-america, analytics --- *Data from geo.sig.ai Brand Intelligence Database. Updated 2026-04-14.*