So I have always been terrible at finding good prices for flights, yet I know many people who constantly score outrageous deals on them. Surely some of you are among these amazing individuals.

So, what are your strategies? How far in advance should I be looking? Are there some hard-to-find websites/companies with better deals? Do certain airlines always have deals going on? What can you tell me, tdub?

1/18/2011 12:16:28 PM

http://www.kayak.com

1/18/2011 12:22:49 PM

kayak is fucking awful.

http://www.flyertalk.com is THE resource for finding amazing flight deals. Learn the secrets

Then use the farecompare flyertalk page to look up fares (anything < 6 cents per mile is decent, < 4 cpm is a real deal). You will rarely be able to book those fares for the listed price, but it lets you know the seasonal/demand markups the airlines are charging.

http://www.farecompare.com/search/flyertalk.html

Flying Jan-March is cheap, and flying end of Sept-November is cheap.

I actually book almost all my flights by going to orbitz first to find routings, then going to the airline's site to book (although now JetBlue, American and Southwest are not listed, so you have to go search their sites manually).

It's all about knowing the seasons and the markets you want to fly to/from. I rarely pay more than ~220 bucks to fly roundtrip Seattle-Greensboro.

[Edited on January 18, 2011 at 1:03 PM. Reason : url again]

1/18/2011 1:02:59 PM

Also, flying on friday and the weekend is more expensive than flying during the week days.

1/18/2011 1:17:16 PM

^I have found flying on saturdays to be one of the better days to fly, along with tuesday and wednesday, but of course that depends on the route.

Along the same lines, flights are cheapest between 21-28 days from departure.

^^I disagree with booking through the airline (SW is the exception). One problem with booking through airline's sites is that they are not going to be very helpful in the event you need to do a flight change (Orbitz & Travelocity can change your flight to other airlines).

Also, Online Travel agencies may have a price match policy. If your fare drops, they might refund you the difference. If you book through the airline, you're not getting anything back.

Travelocity, for instance, will refund you the difference plus give a future credit, if you find a cheaper flight by the next day. This is especially valuable in the 21-28 day range, when fares are pretty volatile. I got $100 back, plus the future credit, with this last month.

1/18/2011 1:35:08 PM

add to my topics

1/18/2011 1:45:02 PM

I use kayak.com to do my initial searching. I like their filters that allow you to specify ranges for take-off/landing times, number of stops, and flexibility on which days would be ok to travel. If you are going to try and monitor fares like ^^ said, use yapta.com to monitor changes in fares for your flight.

Kayak does list American and JetBlue flights, just not southwest.

1/18/2011 1:56:54 PM

http://matrix.itasoftware.com/

is what powers all of the other flight search sites.

and then there's the power user version, which is gonna be what travel agents use

http://matrix1.itasoftware.com/cvg/dispatch

click "login as guest"

1/18/2011 2:14:17 PM

^Yeah, ita is pretty amazing, but it took me a long ass time to really figure out how to use it to string together itineraries

1/18/2011 3:01:57 PM

Quote :

"I use kayak.com to do my initial searching. I like their filters that allow you to specify ranges for take-off/landing times, number of stops, and flexibility on which days would be ok to travel. If you are going to try and monitor fares like ^^ said, use yapta.com to monitor changes in fares for your flight. Kayak does list American and JetBlue flights, just not southwest. "

That's what I use Kayak for as well.

1/18/2011 4:01:48 PM

Does anyone have any strategies for flying into smaller airports? There is $100 difference in flying into a big airport 2 hours away from my destination and flying to the airport 10 mins away. I think I'm going to end up biting the bullet on this one, or not being able to attend this wedding at all.

1/19/2011 11:41:50 AM

By the time you rent a car/pay for gas/etc wouldn't you have paid that $100 difference?

1/19/2011 11:59:13 AM

Quote :

"Does anyone have any strategies for flying into smaller airports? There is $100 difference in flying into a big airport 2 hours away from my destination and flying to the airport 10 mins away. I think I'm going to end up biting the bullet on this one, or not being able to attend this wedding at all."

Always flying in and out of Charleston BLOWS. It's almost double what I would pay to fly out of places like Raleigh. We're FINALLY getting Southwest in the Spring...and that will change things drastically.

You can't really avoid the prices for use of smaller airports.

1/19/2011 12:08:40 PM

Actually, you can. But it's using hidden city or skip-leg strategies, and you will quickly piss off the airlines doing this regularly, resulting in either being banned from the airline or getting charged the fare difference.

Works like this though: Flying from A->B where B is a small airport, costs 500 bucks. But you can buy a flight from A->C that goes through B (A->B->C) for 200 bucks. B is a "hidden city", and you just skip your last leg. But I wouldnt do this more than once on any single airline.

1/19/2011 12:32:11 PM

Doesn't help when you continuously live in that city and have to fly out of it...and it's cheaper to buy round trip tickets.

Although it would help the poster above.

1/19/2011 12:47:24 PM

I always liked http://www.sidestep.com but I am interested in these other sites.

1/19/2011 1:16:44 PM

Quote :

"Works like this though: Flying from A->B where B is a small airport, costs 500 bucks. But you can buy a flight from A->C that goes through B (A->B->C) for 200 bucks. B is a "hidden city", and you just skip your last leg. But I wouldnt do this more than once on any single airline."

If you're dealing with a smaller airport, it's very unlikely you will be able to find a routing that uses B as it's transfer airport that you could even do this. Usually with the cheaper fares you're going to be routed through hubs like Detroit or Atlanta.

1/19/2011 1:28:07 PM

I'm trying to fly to london in May and can not seem to find anything below $820. Does this sound reasonable? I feel like this is a little inflated, I'm guessing from high cost of fuel. What have you guys paid in the past for flying to Europe?

1/19/2011 2:12:22 PM

Business class or coach? You should be able to find something in the 600 range with coach.

1/19/2011 2:35:54 PM

It's suppose to be a lot cheaper than that to fly to England. Other parts of Europe are a lot more expensive...but England is suppose to be the cheapest. I flew round trip to Paris in 2008 for $850...and that was about average for the time.

1/19/2011 2:38:49 PM

Flying to Europe seems to be really season dependent. Back in 2006, I flew to Lyon (France) through Paris, and I paid $1200 for the ticket.

Seems like if you want to go to Europe cheaply, do so in the winter when its cold

1/19/2011 2:43:18 PM

Mine was at the very end of August...so I was on the "fringe" of the tourist season when prices are really high. During the dead of winter I've seen tickets in the $600 range. And I feel like I've seen extremely low prices from NYC to London. Maybe getting to NYC is the expensive part (I had friends get a flight to Athens from NYC for something like $300...they just had to take a road trip to NYC....and pretty sure they paid a lot for the return trip...but they were in the Greek Islands for the summer, so it was worth it).

1/19/2011 2:49:17 PM

Anyone know when would be the best time to buy airfare to Barcelona? I have set dates in October so I know when I would need to fly out and back. Just didn't know if airfare would go down anytime soon. Right now it's around $840ish.

Btw, I bought a round-trip ticket from RDU to Brussels in 2006 for $353. Found the ticket in December and flew out in June. Probably the best deal I'll ever find.

[Edited on January 19, 2011 at 2:56 PM. Reason : .]

1/19/2011 2:56:22 PM

If you fly internationally often enough, it may be a smart idea to try going thru their domestic channels. I have to fly to Europe maybe 3-5 times a year and try to book my flights thru Lufthansa, British Airways, etc., using Euros or GBP respectively. It usually ends up significantly cheaper, sometimes as much as several hundred dollars, then paying in USD using a service like Expedia or Orbitz, or even directly thru the airline itself.

[Edited on January 19, 2011 at 3:24 PM. Reason : x]

1/19/2011 3:23:26 PM

^^ I just found tickets to Barcelona for about $750. You'd have to fly in and out on a Wednesday though

1/19/2011 4:09:19 PM

FYI, If you have a visa signature card (includes Cap One & many others), you can get a 15% off code for Southwest.

https://usa.visa.com/signaturesouthwest/index.jsp?ep=v_sym_signaturesouthwest

1/21/2011 10:14:08 AM

^^
Ahhh yeah...I'm looking to fly out on a Friday, but I checked prices for Thursday just to see and it's quite a difference. If we are both ok with taking that much time off work (it's for our honeymoon) then it may be a possibility. Thanks for checking...I'll look into it.

1/21/2011 10:41:48 AM

Yeah Fridays are always more expensive than flying on a weekday.

1/21/2011 10:47:44 AM

CNN article on airline ticket buying tricks:

http://www.cnn.com/2011/LIVING/01/17/how.to.outsmart.airlines/index.html?iref=obinsite

1/23/2011 11:49:13 AM

yeah I saw a piece on the news the other day saying the optimal time to buy tickets is 3-4 months in advance. If you buy too early, prices will be high since airlines shoot for the moon when they first release tickets, also they charge you out the ass in the 4-6 weeks prior to the flights departure. The best time is 3.5 months according to this dude, thats when the airline execs start to get worried that they wont sell out their tickets and lower the prices significantly

1/23/2011 12:17:26 PM

If you work for a company that has a contract with a travel company you can also book personal flights through them. Also if your company has any sort of concierge service they can do the same thing for you.

Also I was told Tuesday night is the best time of the week to take advantage of flight deals.

[Edited on January 23, 2011 at 12:48 PM. Reason : s]

1/23/2011 12:47:34 PM

Quote :

"Anyone know when would be the best time to buy airfare to Barcelona? I have set dates in October so I know when I would need to fly out and back. Just didn't know if airfare would go down anytime soon. Right now it's around $840ish."

The discount window for October/November flights is usually Mid-march through April. You should wait, the fares will drop significantly. Also, being flexible in your dates by a couple of days can save you 20-30%

1/23/2011 5:47:38 PM

Quote :

"I'm trying to fly to london in May and can not seem to find anything below $820. Does this sound reasonable? I feel like this is a little inflated, I'm guessing from high cost of fuel. What have you guys paid in the past for flying to Europe?"

It's because you are flying at the beginning of peak season. I found a bunch of flights for under $600 ai, but they are all mid-April through the first week of May. Once you get into June, everything starts to jump over $1k.

If you can get to JFK, round trip to London is ~$575 in May, or round trip to Dublin is ~$440 both on Delta. The RT from RDU to JFK is adding 200 bucks to the ticket right now.

1/23/2011 6:20:51 PM

^^
Great to know. Thanks!

1/23/2011 6:22:16 PM

^just as an FYI, for the last three years I've seen RT fares to Barelona and Madrid for 450-500 bucks in the October window.

Set up a price alert on Orbitz/Expedia/Bing and wait for them to high the mid 500's

1/23/2011 6:25:04 PM

so whats the best place to find Caribbean flights?

2/8/2011 7:30:22 PM

trying to book a trip to vegas March 18-20

flights havnt budged much since a few weeks ago when i started looking.

i cant seem to find anything cheaper than $450-500. and its mostly the return flight that is priced really high.

ive searched everything from one-ways to multi airlines and such. no dice.

i dont fly that much, so is this normal airline fee's? i thought vegas flights were on the cheap side of things.

2/8/2011 7:52:34 PM

heck no, i was looking into vegas and found them for 198 a few days ago

check fly.com or sidestep.com for those

2/8/2011 8:20:07 PM

i think vegas flights are always on the more expensive side - been my experience in half a dozen trips out there at all times of the year

2/8/2011 8:26:59 PM

The four times I've been to Vegas the flights have ranged from 250-320. 400-500 is crazy I've never paid that much for a flight anywhere in the US. Just come back on Monday.

2/8/2011 10:28:49 PM

ive been three times and never paid more than $100RT for airfare (though 2 of the three times the airfaire was bundled with a hotel booking).

The reason flights (and hotels) are so expensive the 18-20th is there is a major conference (MiX) that weekend. The week before and after are showing airfare and hotels at 1/2 the rate.

First rule of cheap flights (and hotels) is being flexible on your dates. Looks like a really bad weekend for a cheap trip to vegas.

2/9/2011 2:18:23 AM

100 holy crap

where? how? cant find that for march at all.

2/9/2011 2:21:00 AM

Just realized it's also spring break during that time. Hmmmm

2/9/2011 7:40:36 AM

^I get offers several times a year from hotels in Vegas for 3 day weekend packages for 200-250 bucks all inclusive. I figure 50 a night for hotel and 100 for the flight. Like I said though, it's a package so it's not Really a true 100 rt

2/9/2011 6:07:02 PM

Quote :

"kayak is fucking awful."

Aside from not showing deals/etc what's so bad about it? If I need to fly from date X to date X from city X to city X then I put it into Kayak and it spits out flights. There's an option to launch all the other sites too (Orbitz etc) and I've NEVER seen the other sites show up cheaper/better deals.

Sure I can find "deals" on various other sites but most of the time my dates are so set that I'd rather just throw in my dates and get available flights.

Or maybe I'm completely missing the point?

2/9/2011 6:27:16 PM

Quote :

"Then use the farecompare flyertalk page to look up fares (anything < 6 cents per mile is decent, < 4 cpm is a real deal). You will rarely be able to book those fares for the listed price, but it lets you know the seasonal/demand markups the airlines are charging. "

yeah i have never understood this, if those fares aren't actually available when you click through, what exactly are we looking at, and why?

2/9/2011 6:36:47 PM

^You'd have to assume that you are planning far ahead and have time to snipe a decent deal after waiting, plus those rates may have increased across the board in today's market. Obviously if you're 5 days from the flight you won't have much of a chance to wait for the price to fall because it most likely won't at that point. I've only been able to do this a few times when I knew 3 or 4+ months ahead, had a phone reminder to do a quick check daily once or twice, and waited for a large dip in the going rate. It's basically like trying to time the stock market, so it's hit or miss.

Of those few times I did it, it was only worth it to spend that much of my time for my trip to Japan which was $$$ and saved $500, all the domestic flights I ended up only saving maybe $100 but spent around 4 or 5 hours dicking around with the normal expedia's, orbitz, etc, and direct carrier site. In my short experience I've found it helps to find out what airline has hubs that serve the route you want and how many flights they have alloted; that will help quite a bit on whether the fare will fall or rise dramatically so I know to monitor their site more than other carriers.

2/9/2011 9:18:41 PM

anyone know how to look around for layovers in RDU?

i know its looked down upon, but if i can find a cheap flight one way from Las vegas and it happens to layover in RDU, that'll work.

but from what ive experimented with, doesnt look like much that will stop in RDU. ive seen some layovers in charlotte, but for $20-30 i can get a flight to raleigh

2/9/2011 10:30:31 PM

Ugh, I'm mucking through all these tips trying to determine what I'm going to do for my European study abroad in Edinburgh, Scotland this June 19th-June 2nd.

From RDU to EDI with 1 stop is $1350. That seems...really high.

Looking at ways to reduce it. Maybe flying into London and taking a train?

2/9/2011 10:47:09 PM

^ you could fly into London or any european hub for that matter and then hop a flight on one of the low cost carriers to edinburgh.

2/9/2011 11:34:45 PM