Cheap Airfare Blog

Raul C asked:


I went to r Flà on Expedia US-und UK-Sites and compared the prices fà ¼ ¼ ge from London. Plane ticket on US side are substantially cheaper than the united Königreich in? Who weià Ÿ, which wà ¼ rde happen, if I bought plane ticket on US side?

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Veggiegirl asked:


Is it cheaper to fly out of Newark, NJ or JFK. Is it cheaper to fly into Porto or Lisbon. There are so many sites that I’m confused. We would really like to fly into Lisbon and out of Porto. I’m also wondering if I should just get the help of a travel agent. Please any help would be great.

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European asked:


I live in the USA, around D.C (so airports- Washington Dulles, BWI, JFK, any of those are good departure points), but all of my family is in Lithuania in Eastern Europe.

I visited them last year and in 2008 I would love to visit them again. My only problem is airfare is so expensive. Last year I paid $1,300 a person (myself, my wife, and son).

Does anybody have any tips? I know I should be flexible with dates and airports and I am. I want to departe in the summer-June or July and stay for about 4 weeks.

Anybody have a travel agent they would like to recommend or a secret website, insted of orbitz,kayak, travelocity, etc.
Would it be better for me to book in 2007 or would it be better to book 6-8 weeks prior in 2008?

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global1ent asked:

Does airline professional know something you don’t? Discover secrets from a travel agent that can save you money the next time you fly.
http://www.airfaresecrets.info

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Terrie Bryan asked:


I love to travel, my family loves to travel, and so do my friends. We’ve visited some amazing cities in this country and out, and in the process have spent an amazing amount of money too. It occurred to me that I might want to look around for a way to save some money on my traveling, at least on my airplane tickets. I knew there had to be some way to find airline travel cheap, or if not exactly cheap then at least cheaper than what I was shelling out every time I took a trip. It was either that or cut back and I so did not want to limit myself. So I started stumbling over the Internet in search of deals. What I came upon was an ebook travel guide called My Airfare Secrets by an ex travel agent, Tony Morrison. As I read through the website I saw the author had been a long-time employee in good standing with a major airline and had been let go after a number of years of great service to the company. The premise of the book is that, as his revenge, he decided to write this ebook and detail some of the tips and insider secrets he had gathered in his many years of service. I was tempted to purchase right away since it wasn’t too costly, but I waited a few days while I did some more research. Eventually curiosity got the best of me and I noticed there was a money-back guarantee, so I went ahead and bought the book. I’m really glad I did. I believe this author did an outstanding job as the tips and information found in this guide are terrific. After my first quick scan through the book my head was literally swimming with ideas I could use on my next vacation to save money. I can’t reveal the actual secrets here but many have saved me money and still continue to do so to this day. Are there any negatives? Well sure, there are pros and cons to everything. The negative here is that you will not find each and every tip in this guide useful. Some are geared toward cruises and I get seasick the moment my feet step onto a boat, so those were not helpful for me. And there were a few things I had heard of before so, even though they were good ideas, I already knew about them so they weren’t helpful for me. But on the whole I found much more than I had expected. I had decided that if I found anything that at least saved me the amount equal to the price of the guide, I’d be happy. I found a lot more than that, a lot of travel secrets I had never heard of before. One or two of these tips were, in my opinion, worth the price of the ebook just on their own. I think the information you will find within the pages of My Airfare Secrets is above average when compared to some other ebooks I have purchased. Many informational guides like this contain a lot of filler where apparently the authors are simply trying to fill up space. You won’t find that kind of thing in this book as it goes right to the point listing ways you can save money in your travels. I thought that was great because there’s nothing worse in my opinion than paying money for something that contains a bunch of useless fluff. All in all, I would say that if you are looking for airline travel cheap, deals on cruises, inexpensive hotels, or whatnot, anything to do with traveling, this book is for you. I’m pretty sure just about anyone who puts the ideas into action will save more than the price of the book, so that makes it worthwhile to me.

Vacation travel

Steven Liew asked:


It is a problem that most air travellers face - how and where to buy those cheap airfares online and what are the benefits in savings and drawbacks compared to buying the cheap airfares from the travel agent down the road.

If you travel by air, you would already know that airfares cost typically forms the dominant chunk of your travel bill be it leisure or holiday. And the savings can add up a lot i.e. if you know where to really get those cheap airfares.

But in the current world where there are a proliferation of travel agencies, sites and even airlines themselves advertising all sort of cheap airfares, if you buy those airfares online yourself and cut out the middlemen, the travel agents, then things could get confusing fast.

Without some guidance and understanding of how one of the world’s largest industry works (air travel), travellers are likely to find themselves short-changed for the more expensive airfares tickets or buying something they may not need that had already been built into the airfare prices.

Of course, every traveller would love it if they could just get those cheapest airfares or at least bragged to their relatives or friends how they managed to get those cheap airfares at 30%-50% cheaper than the next guy sitting on the plane. Is this possible actually?

Yes, you can do all these online yourselves but here are 7 important tips you have to know before buying those airfares online or searching for the best cheap airfare deal:

1) Know your priority first.
If cheap airfare price is everything and you can settle for some minor restrictions, then you are always better to go for the cheap consolidators’ airfares rather than that of the airlines’ own published airfares themselves.

On domestic US routes, some of the big online air travel consolidators you could check out are Onetravel.com, Hotwire.com, Priceline.com, etc.

On the other hand, if airfare price is not your top consideration (for example, you have this worry about foreign airlines reliability or security), you should then monitor your favourite airline’s own cheap airfare sales, which they have periodically every two to three months.

Or try to look for a complete package tour (which is likely cheaper in airfare ticket prices than just buying the airfare ticket alone) from the big published Internet travel agencies like Travelocity.com, Expedia.com, etc.

2) Do not waste time checking sites which have the same sources of cheap airfares.
For example, these sites may rely on the same computerised reservation system (CSR) that gives you options from the same set of published air fares.

There are less than 8 major CSR systems in the industry (you can check the sites on which CSRs are they using or ask their customer help desk) and it is better if you get your options from most or all of them to get the cheapest airfares.

Note that some sites may just be a portal or gateways to other main sites so it will be a waste of time to check your options on these sites together for your cheap airfare search.

3) Get the full itineraries available
Remember that airfare pricing are determined by a variety of factors such as dates, seating, routes (direct flights, stopovers or connecting flights for example), and their rules for cancellations, refunds or changes to the tickets.

You may find that the cheapest airfare tickets tend to have a lot of restrictions that may not be suitable to you.

For example, if you are on a rushed vacation where there are too many stopovers or connecting flights, these are likely to eat into your vacation time. Always check the fine prints before paying for any cheap airfares as there are tradeoffs to be made.

4) Always book and pay quickly on a good deal
Do not waste your time searching endlessly for the best cheap airfares deal. They don’t likely exist as airfare pricing are determined by many things as noted from above and the cheapest airfare tickets may not be suitable after all for your requirements.

If you do see a good cheap airfare deal, book and pay for it quickly.

Airlines typically may offer a few crash-down cheap airfare deals to pull in demands on limited seat availability and what you see in the advertisements may not be available to you in a few days or even the next hour unless you book and pay for those cheap seats quickly.

Keeping an eye open and putting yourself on the e-mail list of notifications by the airlines or travel agencies are a good way of spotting these cheap airfare deals.

5) There is no magical place or site to look, just the best comparison
Despite what some may claim, there are no one airline or travel site that will offer you the best available cheap airfare deal as it all depends on your requirements and travel preferences.

There are actually thousands of permutations of flights routes, prices, type of flights, seatings, timing, etc for any possible trip especially for those long-distance, lengthy, round-the-world (RTW)trips.

Hence, it is always wise to do comparison between airlines or travel agencies at all time for their cheap airfare claims or offers. Of course, just do not be a cheap airfare fanatic until you miss the forest for the trees.

6) Never assume anything on cheap airfares
The best advice is never to assume anything on the airfares that you have to pay as what is cheap could be obscured by hidden charges.

Make sure that the net cheap airfare price you have to pay have factored in other charges like airport taxes, surcharges, agencies charges, etc. before you pay or make a like-for-like comparison with other sites.

Also never assume that online airfare prices will be cheaper. Always check offline for example with the consolidators’ cheap airfares.

Also never assume that those cheapest airfares flight search function on any travel websites will actually get you the ever lowest discount fares.

They won’t as search robots are actually not exactly built that way and are quite rigid. For example, they may not disclose another cheaper airfare alternative say if you vary your destination or stopover a little bit, which brings us to a last point.

7) You need to invest some patience and efforts
Ultimately, to find those bargain cheap airfares, you still need to invest the time and effort to find them.

There are always different sites, tactics and sources to find the best possible cheap airfares (note not necessarily the cheapest) for any trips.

If you are unable to do so yourself, you could still find a trustworthy and reliable travel agent to search out those cheap airfare options for you for a small fee.

Just be sure that you ask all the relevant questions in this case as some agents may not likely be as helpful as you want them to be, to search for the lowest airfares or best itineraries for you.

In the end still, nothing beats a little time and effort to plan your trip yourself and get the best out of it at the least cost.

Cheap Cruises

Steven Liew asked:


Looking for those cheap and rock-bottom international consolidator airfares?

Well, in the diverse world of air travel ticketing, there is no one way to guarantee that you will get the cheapest fares out there but your odds to get discount airfares are certainly many times better if you seek the consolidators tickets rather than the airlines official published airfares.

Remember that discounted consolidator tickets are very much just like a normal published airline fare ticket with the major difference being just that the price is not typically printed on the consolidator tickets.

Airlines basically do not admit they sell discounted tickets to consolidators, which are against the rules anyway and hence explains the no-pricing printout above.

Apart from the cheaper airfares, consolidator tickets have other advantages, usually requiring no advance purchase and no Saturday-night stay (typically for the US market).

In addition, you can normally still get cheap consolidator tickets at short notice unlike the inflated last-minute published air fares that could cost you a fortune.

Even then, you have to make sure you get those reliable consolidators that will offer the best airfare prices, and remember that not all consolidators sell to the general public.

Still, if you want to pay at least 40%-60% cheaper airfares than the guy sitting next to you on the plane, here are 7 sure-fire tips to be able to do just that.

1. Get a reliable travel agent who deals with a range of consolidators if you do not want the hassle of looking and doing the arrangements with the consolidators them.

A trustworthy travel agent is worth his weight in gold to you especially an experienced and knowledgeable one, much more than the small commission they charged nowadays for getting you a really cheap consolidator airfare.

Note that not all licensed travel agent do business with a whole range of wholesale consolidators, so try the specialised ones in the field to ensure you get all the cheap fare options on the table.

For more country-type trips or special itineraries, consider to look for the so-called “ethnic agency” consolidators that deals with only one country or region, since many have contracts with carriers based in the home country, such as Air India or EgyptAir.

2. Check airfares quoted by the travel agent with online discounters or consolidators, especially since these are the ones that you can check as they deal with the general retail public.

Obviously, you have to check the credentials of these companies as there could be many fly by night consolidators which may not have a strong financial background. Some of the strongest online consolidators include names like Onetravel.com, Flights.com, Faremax.com, Airlineconsolidator.com and Airgorilla.com.

3. For reliability, make sure the agents or consolidators are registered with national or international travel authorities such as the American Society of Travel Agents (http://www.travelsense.org) or accreditation with the International Air Transport Association (http://www.iata.org) or the Airline Reporting Corp http://www.arccorp.com).

Note that some unreliable consolidators have known to go bust big time at one point in the past, hence do not go for the cheapest consolidators without checking.

4. You can then check the best consolidators airfares against those specialised online sites that offer cheap airfares on their own. Most of these sites basically aggregate deals from the consolidators themselves like Hotwire.com and Priceline.com but some are the consolidator companies themselves that have evolved to serve the general public.

5. Check out also the aggregators. These are companies that typically scout for low airfares and then direct you to where to buy them. Some of these aggregators include Cheapflights.com and Kayak.com.

6. Try to be flexible and explore all the options. For example, some wholesale consolidators are also retail tour operators, and their tour package will thus tend be cheaper as they book in bulk for the tickets, hotel rooms and car rentals.

7. Finally, check the consolidators cheapest pricing against that of the airlines themselves. Most of the time, you will find that the consolidators offer you the cheapest airfares available.

However, on some occasions, the airline published airfares could actually be cheaper especially where there are intense price wars in a particular market or there are new promotions to attract demand for a new route or market.

These could cause the airlines to break their pact with the consolidators and charge even lower fares than the latter.

Consolidator airfares are now part and parcel of the airline ticketing industry and like it or not, consolidators are probably the best option you need to explore to get cheaper airfares.

Airline Tickets

Stephen Campbell asked:


One sure way of getting cheap airfare is by taking a plane from an airport close to your destination. If your destination by air is to Montreal, then taking a plane to New York John F. Kennedy airport can help to cut back drastically on airfare. It’s really worth it to drive a couple of hours from where you stay to an airport close to your destination so that you can save on airfare.

The recent years has seen a slight drop in the rate of air passengers because of the 9/11 incident. In a bid to constantly reassure their customers enough to come back, airlines offer special deals or packages. Special deals or packages are airline’s way of luring customers to their services. Cheap airfare packages are offered by various airline companies.

New deals and packages come up each day. Airlines and travel agencies are constantly striving to increase their customer base. You can use the competition in the aviation industry to find the best cheap airfare. When you are able to compare packages by these airline companies, surely, you will be able to get the best airline tickets deal.

The internet affords you the opportunity to ferret for cheap airfare. With the internet cheap airfare possibilities are limitless. You have the luxury of using a variety of travel and airline websites on the internet to help aid your search for the perfect airfare. Surf the Internet and make a comparison of their packages so that you are able to get the best travel packages.

You can boycott the cost of hiring a travel agent if you have the time to search for cheap airfare by yourself. Cheap airfare can be easily accessed on the internet. The internet is a veritable tool for the search of cheap airfare.

In searching the Internet for cheap airfare, you should be skeptical about any ridiculously cheap airfare. Airfares below a hundred dollars are usually round trip tickets. Make sure that you call up any airline offering cheap airfare on their websites to confirm it.

The euphoria of flying to your vacation spot can be dampened by the cost of airfare. Cheap airfare enables you to save enough money to spend on souvenirs during your vacation. Cheap airfare can be easily gotten as long as you know the right tricks to pull.

Blogs can make a delightful source of cheap airfare information. People looking to spill their guts on the best cheap airfare buy have blogs that can be of great help. You can get yourself a blog and share your tricks for getting cheap airfare with other people.

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