I agree with both of these thoughts, but where is tripeedo when kayak partners with all of these?
i recently went to hong kong and searched all of these engines and got discouraging prices. I did one search on Cathay Pacific's website and saved close to 40%. I'm almost positive you won't see this with domestic flights (for now.)
They won't partner I don't think. Airlines dislike fare competition, it drives profits down and worsens their already-bad financial situation. From the couple guys I know who work in that industry, there is real push-back against aggregation sites.
You also provided the evidence of this yourself - I too have had a lot of trouble with Kayak recently, and it seems their ability to scrape accurate fares is severely compromised, and I suspect that airlines have some hand in this.
i recently went to hong kong and searched all of these engines and got discouraging prices. I did one search on Cathay Pacific's website and saved close to 40%. I'm almost positive you won't see this with domestic flights (for now.)