Kayak is a travel metasearch engine founded in 2004 and acquired by Priceline (now Booking Holdings) in 2013. Headquartered in Stamford, Connecticut, Kayak aggregates results from hundreds of OTAs, airlines, hotel chains and car rental companies into a single comparison interface for consumers.
Kayak does not sell travel directly. Instead, it earns revenue through cost-per-click and referral commissions when users click out to supplier and OTA partner sites, plus advertising and a small share of assisted bookings handled in-app via Booking.com supply. The metasearch model gives Kayak high gross margins relative to traditional OTAs.
Kayak is among the largest travel metasearch brands globally alongside Skyscanner, Trivago and Google Travel. It is particularly strong in the United States and select European markets. Inside Booking Holdings, Kayak operates with significant brand independence and provides a meta-tier traffic source that complements Booking.com's transactional focus.
Kayak is best known for its consumer-friendly flight search interface, price-prediction tools, fare alerts, multi-city itinerary builder and Trips itinerary management product. It also operates HotelsCombined, momondo, Cheapflights, SWOODOO and checkfelix as additional metasearch brands within its portfolio.
