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.
Kayak data shows flight searches to World Cup host cities spiking overnight after knockout results, with Miami up 200% and quarterfinal cities seeing the sharpest jumps yet.
KAYAK has launched Ask AI, a conversational search tool that lets travelers plan trips through natural-language questions across flights, hotels, and car rentals. It is available to all users in the US, UK, and Canada.
KAYAK search data shows flight demand to Kansas City is up 136% year-over-year ahead of the 2026 FIFA World Cup, with hotel rates in secondary host cities like Kansas City (+115%) and Philadelphia (+70%) seeing the steepest increases.
KAYAK launched Ask AI, a conversational travel search tool that updates live flight, hotel, and car results in real time alongside a chat interface, marking a first in travel metasearch.
Kayak's AI Mode, launched in October 2025, is the clearest signal yet of how intent-driven queries are rewriting metasearch — and it lands as the company prepares for life after Steve Hafner.