May 28, 2003 08:06 PM
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(Updated Jun 19, 2004 08:46 AM)
Money is better than poverty, if only for financial reasons. -- Woody Allen
TIPS FOR FINDING CHEAP AIRFARES
Airline industry is in shambles today, in the wake of the economics of the world today. It is more likely that you may end-up paying more for your favorite destination due to the tight economy. How will you get a good, killer deal? Well, some patience and some common-sense will save you a lot of your hard-earned money.
WHAT ARE THE WAYS?
You can save money in one or more of the following travel modes that I am planning to deliberate on.
Domestic Travel within US
International Travel from US
International Travel from countries other than US
Travel from India
DOMESTIC TRAVEL WITHIN US
This is the option for which you have so many options and facilities available. Domestic Travel within US is the most dominant factor in airline industry, for the volume of flights and the number of passengers traveling. Many of them are business travelers and a considerable amount of passengers are leisure or vacation travelers. This industry is big and the competition is sky-high. You have so many ways where-in you can save money.
Let us see some of the price saving options.
priceline.com – This site had a dream debut as a star dotcom site with a patented business model. How this works is a secret, although they have their proprietary technology to skim through various options to meet the price that a customer demands. It is 50-50 in giving what customer wants. They add some slush marketing to the customer. The customer is happy to get a cheap deal; but at the same time, he/she’ll have to travel at the times specified by priceline.com. This is a unique strategy although this site is facing some downturn due to economy.
orbitz.com – This site is widely used by many and is pegged as the top cheap-fare site for US domestic travel. It is supported by some major airlines. You can see comparisons of the prices side by side and choose your own.
hotwire.com – One of those unsung heroes and a great website
expedia.com – powered by Microsoft, is a great one too.
Travelocity.com – Another good one
trip.com
cheaptickets.com
After this you may have to look for the weekly/monthly/seasonal low-fares offered by the airliners. These options give you an unbeatable deal that no one else will give you. All you have to do is to register to these sites, put in your favorite spots and wait. Invariably, you will get a killer deal in few weeks.
These are, in no particular order
United e-fares
American Airlines Net Savers
NWA e-fares
Delta e-fares
and so on
Some other ways are to look for red-eye travel from one of the smaller airlines who fly to odd locations and all. Mind you these airlines are the most successful ones around, profit-wise
Southwest
JetBlue
America-West
If you fly these, you may get some connection night-mares, a small cost to pay for some extra-money
INTERNATIONAL
All the options mentioned above, have some international criteria too. So you just have to use the international options. Many airlines have international e-fares and all. For europe, you may want to try easyjet.com and airlibexpress.com as they provide some good connections and deals.
INTERNATIONAL FROM COUNTRIES OTHER THAN US/TRAVEL FROM INDIA
Many sites are international in nature. Hence, you may get deals from the same. There may be some countries for which you may not have any option, other than to buy from the airline or from a travel-agent. There are some routine sites such as makemytrip.com and all which are advertised in the web-sites. For Travel to/from India, from word of mouth and my own good conscience, the age old travel agent is the best option so far. If you go to airline website yourselves, it will be highway robbery. Always go for travel agents. It is worth paying few dollars more to those guys to make you worry less.
SOME GENERAL TIPS TO FIND Cheap-airfares
Many airlines have regular maintenance during midnight. It is said that as soon as their maintenance is done, you usually get some good deals for seats reserved but not paid. Also if there are any screw-ups in software maintenance, you may see $25 tickets for a normal $500 ride. This happened very recently in a major airline web-site. They honored the purchases made in a flurry, within 2 hours before they fixed it.
You can fly as a courier to get deals on international travel.
For a particular destination, if one major airliner announces a low fare, just wait for sometime and you will see one or more coming with similar deals
You can also go for bulk coupon deals, if the number is many, as airlines love it.
Always look for last-minute deals. If flights are under
booked, these options can be lovely.
Always look for smaller airlines flying to the same location. They will be cheaper. For example, southwest offers $39 tickets from LA to SFO.
Always look for options of flying to a nearby city. The chances are that you will get cheap flights for the cost of driving few more miles.
Many suburban airports are connected by train or bus, you fly for less and hop onto one of them.
Some alternative airports to look for
Chicago – Midland instead of O’Hare
Washington DC – Baltimore instead of DC
New York – Newark instead of NYC
Los Angeles – Orange County/Burbank instead of LAX
London – Birmingham instead of London
You can also vouch to volunteer to get 400-500$ coupon for overbooked tickets. Mostly you will get accommodation plus a great free flight.
Keep your ears open. Sometimes your colleagues may let you know about some killer deals. I was able to get a $79 deal to Niagara(Buffalo,NY) against a regular deal of $225-300 once due to the same.
I Hope that was useful.
Please add your comments, as time permits.
Kalil
The less we deserve good fortune, the more we hope for it. -- Jean B. Moliere
