How to Track Flights and Find Hotels with Amazon Echo

The Amazon Echo feature set is constantly growing, and this time, the voice-activated virtual assistant has added support for Kayak, allowing you to track flights, find hotels, and more using just your voice.

RELATED: How to install and set up your Amazon Echo

Echo can do some pretty crazy things already: order pizza from Domino’s, call Uber to pick you up, and even control your home theater setup with Kodi. Sure, searching for flights and hotels is probably better in a web browser, but being able to quickly find out when a particular flight lands using your voice is pretty cool. Plus, if you’re in the kitchen and casually talking to your spouse about where you want to go this summer, using Alexa can be a great way to quickly help you with any vacation plans.

You can do a lot more with Kayak through Alexa using a few different phrases. However, before you can get started with all of this, you’ll first need to install the required Alexa skill, so let’s get started.

Step One: Install Kayak Alexa Skill

To do this, open the Alexa app on your phone and tap the menu icon in the sidebar at the top left corner of the screen.

IMG_2173_stomped

Click on Skills.

IMG_2174_stomped

Click in the search box at the top where it says Search Skills.

IMG_2175_stomped

Enter «Kayak» and the Kayak skill will appear. Click on «Enable» at the bottom.

IMG_2176_stomped

Once it’s enabled, you can return to the home screen or simply exit the Alexa app.

Step Two: Use Alexa to Find Flights, Hotels, and Car Rentals

Once you have the skill set, you go racing and can ask Alexa to find any flights, hotels, and even rental cars. However, you must start every voice command with «Alexa, ask Kayak…» so keep that in mind when doing your search.

IMG_2373_stomped

Here are a few things you can say to your Amazon Echo using Kayak:

«Alexa, ask Kayak to track United Flight 310.»

«Alexa, ask Kayak when the Delta flight from Boston arrives in New York.»

«Alexa, ask Kayak how much it costs to fly from Los Angeles to New York.»

To make things easier for you, you can set the home airport that Kayak will use when looking for flights:

«Alexa, ask Kayak to set my airport to JFK.»

«Alexa, ask Kayak to set up my home airport in Chicago.» (Then you’ll get options for which Chicago airport to choose).

From there, you can make your search a little shorter and say something like:

«Alexa, ask Kayak to look for flights to Barcelona.» (You will be asked when you are going on a round trip flight or not).

«Alexa, ask Kayak where I can go for $300.»

For hotels, you can get the information you need from Alexa using several commands (including car rentals):

«Alexa, ask Kayak to find hotels in Chicago.» (You will then be asked when you plan to check in and how long you will be staying.)

«Alexa, ask Kayak to find hotels in Chicago July 13-17.»

«Alexa, ask Kayak to find car rentals in Denver.»

To book a flight, hotel, or rental car, you need to go to the Kayak website and physically book it, as you can’t do it through Amazon Echo. You only use Alexa to find flights and hotels, but this can be a quick way to do it.

Image title by RobWilson / Bigstock, Kayak, Amazon