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Budget Travel: 7 Quick tips for cheap airplane tix

by Grant Martin (RSS feed) on Feb 2nd 2009 at 11:30AM

Spending some time on the road this year? Chances are, you're going to have to battle the internets for a good deal on your flight. But what to do when the prices are sky high and your wallet is recession skinny?

Most respectable travel websites out there have giant lists, strategies and flow charts about the best way to get the absolute best price. It works, but it can be complicated, and in a busy world like this, few of us have time to look through an ITA Matrix and calculate the most optimum routing.

Don't know what an ITA Matrix is? Then keep reading for our quick tips to getting the best price on airplane tickets.

Flexible Flexible Flexible: There's a reason that Kayak has a "flexible dates" option in their search engine. Traveling on Fridays and Sundays are most expensive (highest demand,) so if you can, try Thursday or Monday. Monday AM flights are often drastically less expensive and you can still often get into work by 10.
Book early: Probably more than a month out. Definitely more than two weeks. If it's inside of a week, drive or take a hot air balloon.

Use a metacrawler: Given that we just mentioned Kayak, we should point out this important tip: Always use a metacrawler. Both Kayak and Mobissimo search engines search all of the traditional search engines on the market AND airline websites, so you can guarantee that you're not shelling out extra cash on a third party website.
Check the Low Cost Carrier: Southwest doesn't publish its fares on the regular search engines, so make sure you do a cross check at southwest.com before you book your ticket.
Search nearby airports: Flying out of Los Angeles? Make sure you check Long Beach (LGB,) Santa Ana (SNA) and Ontario (ONT) as well. Airports with a large LCC presence often have more competitive fares.
Look for coupons: As our friends at Airfarewatchdog (AFWD) recently pointed out, promo codes are the way that airlines are going this year. American, Virgin America and JetBlue are among the carriers that frequently used coupons last year and you can expect moreto come. Not sure where to find codes? Check with AFWD or your respective carrier over at flyertalk.com.
Consider a consolidator: For international travel, consolidators often buy tickets in a discounted block and pass the savings onto passengers. Hotwire.com and airlineconsolidator.com are both fairly simple sites that you can use, or you can always use a local (physical) source.

Finally, the best piece of advice we can give is to be patient. If you've got a few months before your dates of travel, set up a fare alert at Kayak. You have to create an account, but once you do, you can have the software automatically search for your fare every day and report to you when the price drops.

Filed under: Airlines, Transportation, Budget Travel, Internet Tools

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

VoteAudrey Feb 3rd 2009 1:19AM

Useful tips, I am a big fan of Kayak!

Martino Feb 4th 2009 10:54AM

You rightly pointed out that Southwest will not be found in meta-search engines. But, to get an idea where do budget airlines fly (including Southwest), you can get a full list of routes at www.whichbudget.com - just say where you want to fly from or to and it will bring up routes from over 100 budget airlines.

Lindsey Feb 6th 2009 2:08PM

I agree, Southwest is cheap and does not show up in meta-search engines for travel...bummer. But there is a site, cFares.com, that you should really take a look at. It provide users with BELOW MARKET rates!! I saved some major cash on a recent round trip flight to London from San Francisco. Apparently, international travel is where you can find the cheapest rates, sometimes saving up to $100 dollars. It also compares their rates with Travelocity, Expedia and Hotwire and ALWAYS has lower rates.