HOW TO FIND A CHEAP FLIGHT.
For many of us, it is all about getting one of those cheap price points from the airline.
Be Flexible with Your Travel Dates
Airline ticket prices vary depending on the day of the week, time of year, and upcoming holidays such as Christmas, New Year’s Eve, Thanksgiving, or Fourth of July. August is a big month for traveling around Europe so airline tickets tend to be higher. It’s always cheaper to fly during the middle of the week than on a weekend. If you fly after a major holiday, prices are also a bit cheaper. Early morning or late night flights are cheaper because fewer people want to travel then. Before you commit to your departure, make sure you check other dates and times. If you are not flexible in the dates you want to fly, you will never be able to find a cheap flight. Even the difference of a day can mean hundreds of dollars in savings.
Itasoftware.com was a Google-owned website that was invaluable to find the cheapest flights over the nest month, but did not cover ULCC nor could you book on it. It has been replaced by google.com/flights, easily the fastest website on the planet and it also allows booking. It is often worthwhile to go to the individual airline to book – easiest and cheapest way to cancel and you can register your air miles, but not always the cheapest. Most of the time, I use skyscanner.com as it has the widest coverage of any search engine and includes some ULCC.
Be Flexible with Your Destinations
Instead of going to a place with an expensive flight, go where it is the cheapest. Kayak offers the “Explore tool” that allows you to put in your airport and see what routes have the cheapest fares. Google Flights also has a similar (and better) feature. If you are flexible with where you want to go (i.e. anywhere but home), this is a great way to start researching where to go. Other sites that have similar search tools: Whichbudget.com, Skyscanner.com.
Try Alternative Routes
Not only does it help to be flexible with dates, but try being flexible with the route you take, too. Sometimes it’s cheaper to fly to London and take a ULLC to Amsterdam rather than flying direct to Amsterdam. There are so many budget carriers around the world that taking advantage of a good deal to another city and then hopping on a budget flight to your destination is sometimes the best way to go. It often means more flying time but the savings can be worth it.
By working various airlines and special offers, you can save a lot. This method is not for everyone, however. It is more work, as you have to figure out lots of different routes and check different airlines. But it will shave some money off your flight, giving you more to spend at your destination.
Take Advantage of Student Discounts
If you are a student, there are many, many discounts available to you. Check out STA Travel and their search engine. You can find flexible student tickets on their website and at agency stores. It may not be the cheapest flight, just the cheapest direct flight. There are many student codes out there, and many of the tourist agencies in backpacker areas can help find you a cheap ticket.
Sign Up for a Frequent Flier Program
Airline rewards programs are a great way to get free flights, free upgrades, and free companion tickets. No matter how often you fly, you should be signed up for the airline’s reward program. If you live in North America, stick to US-based airlines since they are involved in all the major alliances and you can earn miles on their partner flights. For example, if you fly Singapore Airlines, you can earn United Airlines miles because they are partners. Do the same if you fly Air France and use your Delta rewards account. This way you are always earning miles when you fly. However, if you aren’t from the states, simply use an airline from your home country that is involved in one of these alliances.
There are a lot of other ways to earn miles if you aren’t jetsetting around the world all the time:
1. Shop at member stores – All airlines have special offers for large consumer companies such as Amazon, Apple, Best Buy, Target. Shopping at those preferred stores will earn you 2 to 4 miles per dollar spent. Sometimes even up to 10 miles per dollar spent. If you spend 1,000 dollars a month, you can earn up to 3,000 miles just by going through their websites. The products don’t cost extra and it’s the same company so you only win, you don’t lose. I do all my shopping through the airline partners simply for the extra miles.2.
2. Watch for special offers – Sign up for newsletters because they often have featured offers not found on an airline’s website. This could be triple miles on a selected route or as simple as Starwood’s recent promotion. These bonuses don’t go into the high tens of thousands but you can get a little over a long period of time by doing virtually nothing. They add up.
3. Be a Crazy Flyer – On forums like Flyertalk, where people hunt out the latest chances for miles, you often find people doing mileage runs. This means that an airline will offer triple miles or double elite qualifying miles (these miles, unlike normal miles, count towards your elite flyer status and can only be earned by flying) if you fly a certain route. When airlines get into price wars or offer new routes, they often launch ridiculous double or triple mile offers. Many people then fly these routes just for the miles. They will fly from California to New York and back again if they find a dirt cheap fare in order to gain miles. Mileage runs are very common and while not free, can be a useful method to gain a lot of miles on a cheap fare.
4. Put everything on the card – Pay nothing in cash and put everything on your travel credit card – from Starbucks to phone bills. If your total monthly spending, including business expenses, is about $3,000 per month, that’s 36,000 miles just for doing nothing special. That’s a free one-way flight to Europe right there. Using the websites listed in the credit card section for finding bonus offers, you’ll be able to accumulate a lot of flight miles.
Know What You Want to Pay for a Flight
Airline prices always bounce up and down, yet in our quest to hold out just a little longer, we can miss the lowest price. Know what you want to pay, not what you hope to pay. Don’t wait for the perfect price. But be realistic. If the lowest available price is $1,000 for a flight but the average is $1,500, don’t wait for $900 as it’s probably not going to get that low. You will never have buyer’s remorse if you find a price point you are comfortable with. No two people on a flight pay the same price, so all you can do is hope you get the price you feel good about.
Book During the Sweet Spot
With oil prices going up, airlines are raising fees. They were raised 7 times in 2013 alone. The best booking window is 6 to 8 weeks before your flight, three months during peak season. This is the sweet spot when the airlines begin to either lower or increase fares based on demand.
Some Miscellaneous Ideas
1. Be Unloyal. Being loyal to a specific brand does not make sense when the airfare costs too much. Search for airfares from all carriers rather than sticking with a specific airline.
2. One Way Flights. Booking separate one way flights may result in lower airfares and more convenient schedules than a round trip (aka return) flight.
3. Alternate Airports. Not only do many areas have more than one airport but the best airport for a given trip might not be the obvious choice. For instance, when visiting California Disneyland, instead of LAX (Los Angeles), better airport options would be LGB (Long Beach), SNA (Santa Ana/Orange County), and ONT (Ontario). In fact, considering the traffic between LAX and Disneyland, I would also consider SAN (San Diego).
4. Introductory Flights. When an airline enters a new market, they usually offer initial lower airfares. Current examples include WOW between USA and Europe for $99 each way and Virgin America between Washington, DC area and Dallas. Even better is that existing airlines drop their fares to match the new guy.
5. Break Up Groups. When more than one person is flying together, whether a couple or family or group, compare the prices for one person versus the whole group. When one member of the group ends up in a higher fare class, many airlines will assign that rate to every member of the group. I have found lower airfares by buying separate tickets; for instance, for my family on one itinerary and myself on another. The seats can still be reserved together.
6. Hidden City Flights have had tonnes of press and it is worth mentioning what they are, although they are not of great use to travellers. Effectively you find a flight to somewhere you don’t want to go with a stop-off somewhere you do want to go at a price cheaper than the direct flight to the place you wanted to go. Obviously this only works if you have no check-in bag and one-way. If you need to travel to a hub destination you have the best chance of finding such a deal, although searching is something of an art.
ULTRA LOW COST COST CARRIERS (ULCCs)
ULLCs offer a la carte pricing – you pay a cut-rate price for a seat, but everything else has an added fee: baggage, meals, seat location, any onboard luggage weighing more than 11lb, more leg room, even printing a boarding pass. ULCCs have been very successful in Europe and the US. As flying within the European continent, especially on long flights, is much cheaper per kilometer than flying across the Atlantic, the trans-Atlantic market was ripe for the picking and this is where some of the new ULLCs entered.
Global deregulation (allows foreign airlines to land anywhere they want in the US), online ticket sales and marketing (eliminates the need for costly ground staff), consolidation among mainline carriers (fares have increased but the number of available seats hasn’t), and better planes (can run longer and leaner – the Boeing Dreamliner is $15 million cheaper per year to run than comparable older jets) has allowed new entrants into the airline passenger business. Gate staff, catering and aircraft maintenance are outsourced. High utilization keeps the price down to about 6 cents a kilometer.
ULLCs especially in Europe use the smaller cheaper airports available in major cities. This is the airport with cheaper landing fees and thus keeping costs down. Check out which airlines fly into these smaller airports. For example, you can take JetBlue to Long Beach, an airport close to Los Angeles, instead of flying into LAX and, in Europe, Ryanair will fly into Eindhoven, Netherlands instead of Amsterdam airport while Norwegian Airlines flies into the smaller and harder to get to airports in Oslo and Stockholm. It happens throughout the world so always look into where you are flying. But be sure to check out how far the airports are from the city center — sometimes transportation from the airport to the city can actually make a budget airline more expensive. However, in general, these low-cost budget airlines are a good deal.
They are best for simple round-trip or one-way flights that require no connections. Connecting to different airports can be an issue. The airports can be in the middle of nowhere so taxi fares can wipe out any savings. Parking may be much cheaper at these secondary airports which may be a significant cost saving if you are driving your own car. Before buying a ticket, figure out which airports are used, how far they are from town, and how you’ll get to and from them.
They generally work best when you have time to spare. Factor in travel time to and from the airport, possible long check-in queues and strict check-in deadlines. There may be a required time between connecting flights.
Check luggage limits as they can be as low as 33 pounds. Can you tolerate no-frills service, small seats and steep prices for a limited selection of drinks and food. As you approach your travel dates, the more likely you are to find the best deal on one of the big national airlines which drop their fares to compete at the last moment. So always do some shopping then.
Most are not listed on traditional searches – use lowcostairlines.com, skyeurope.com and whichbudget.com to find ULCC.
Europe. ULCCs control 30% of the market and have expanded the market by making it possible for more people to fly.
Airtraffic.eu – is by far the best overview.
Whichbudget.com – has them all.
1. ryanair.com The original and largest ULCC in Europe. Goes everywhere from everywhere. Uses non-traditional airports. Charges for luggage by the kilo. Ryan sometimes provides shuttles to and from these airports at a cost or you have expensive taxi rides. But if one calculates the lost time, it may not save much money. Ryan once threatened to charge for use of the bathroom but backed down due to the outroar.
2. wizzair.com – Hungarian, good for eastern Europe. UK/Ireland to Eastern Europe. Has stylish planes with comfy seats.
3. easyjet.com – Serves virtually everywhere in Western Europe, Stockholm, Iceland, Riga, Moscow, Turkey (several destinations), Sinai Egypt, Tel Aviv, Morocco and Canary Islands. Almost everywhere to a lot of places.
4. airberlin.com – Germany-wide to Europe but serves all of Western Europe, some of Eastern Europe, Balkans, Phuket, Cancun, Dominican Republic, 5 American cities, Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia, UAE, Tel Aviv.
5. eurowings.com – Formerly Germanwings, serves many German cities, most of Western Europe, UK, Dublin
6. vueling.com – A Spanish airline with its main hub in Barcelona, flies to 100 destinations in Europe, Asia (Armenia, Israel and Lebanon) and Africa. And clickair.com- Spain-wide to Europe and
7. skyeurope.com – A search engine that searches low-cost flights.
8. whichbudget.com – Another search engine – shows which low-cost European carriers fly your route.
9. europebyair.com Their Flight Pass allows you to fly 24 different low-cost carriers between 150 cities for $99 per one-way flight, and there is no charge for itinerary changes.
10. wowair.dk – Iceland based, WOW offers four-times-a-week service from Baltimore and Boston to Reykjavik for as little as $400 round-trip with continuing service to 18 other European cities. They use narrow-body Airbus A320s (with 200 vs the more typical 220 seats). A smaller jet means you need fewer passengers to fill them so there is less capacity risk. It is Europe’s most on-time airline with 94% of departures running on time. Their new extended range Airbus A321neo allows them to reach almost anywhere in the US. With layovers, Iceland has become an attractive tourist destination. Recession-induced currency deflation has made the country a bargain and tourism is growing at 20% per year. An active volcano makes it the most exclusive and unique theme park in the world.
The business they are going after most is business class – the typical fare between Paris and New York is $5,000 to $9,000, vs. $1000 in coach. For this route business class is 15% of the volume, but 50% of the revenue.
11. norwegian.com – Norwegian Air Shuttle – Flies wide-bodied 787 Dreamliners to London from New York City, Los Angeles, Orlando and Fort Lauderdale; plus Oakland to Oslo and Copenhagen.
12. Fly Be – UK-wide to Europe
13. Transavia – Stansted to Amsterdam & Holland Europe-wide
14. Iceland Express – Stansted to Iceland
15. Volare – Stansted to Italy
16. Aer Arann – England & Scotland to Ireland
17. FlyGlobespan.com Edinburgh & Glasgow to EU
18. TUI Fly Mainly UK and Germany with package holiday resorts globally.
19. BMI Baby – UK-wide to Europe
20. Jet2 – Leeds & Bradford to Europe
21. BlueAir, Brussels Airlines, Pegasus, Condor
22. lacompagnie.cm – Not a budget airline but included for its budget business class. Runs 74-seat, all business-class 757s between Paris and New York for $2,000 rather than $5-11,000. Passengers get fast-tracked through security, have access to a business-class lounge, being French means good food and wine, and have lie-flat beds with massage features.
Australia & New Zealand
1. Virgin Australia – Australian staple
2. Skywest – Western (inc. Darwin & Bali) Australia
3. Regional Express – South East local Australian routes
4. Jetstar – Across Australia and to New Zealand
Africa:
1. Kulula & Mango – South Africa
2. Fly540 – Kenya, Uganda, Sudan and Tanzania
3. Precision Air – Tanzania domestic
4. FastJet – Tanzania, but plans to expand
Middle East:
1. Air Arabia – UAE based, wide network & Jazeera Airways
2. Also see: www.attitudetravel.com/lowcostairlines/mideast/
3. flypgs.com – Pegasus Airline. Based in Istanbul, Turkey.
4. flydubai.com – Charges for check-in luggage and uses secondary airports.
5. jazeeraairways.com – The price listed on the search engine is always very low as it does not include airport taxes. Often cheaper on the search engine than on the airline website.
South East Asia:
1. airasia.com – Mostly southeast Asia, Japan. Great & cheap flight network.
2. jetstar.com – International hub is in Singapore with flights to Southeast Asia, Australia, Japan, India and China. Domestic routes in Vietnam, Japan, Australia and New Zealand. Excellent.
3. cebupacificair.com – Philippines and SE Asia
4. tigerairways.com – Based in Singapore, serves Jakarta.
5. flyscoot.com – Singapore Airlines budget airline.
6. Nok Air – Thai based, predominately domestic
7. Orient Thai Airlines – Now integrated with One-Two-Go the domestic low-cost carrier
8. Vietnam Airlines – Local and international connections (mainly from HCMC) inc. Oz
9. Lion Air – Indonesian based, domestic and connects with SEA capitals. Not very dependable.
10. Laos Airlines – domestic, Cambodia and Vietnam. Not the most efficient.
South Asian:
1. Sri Lanka Airlines – cheap flights to India, Thailand, Malaysia and beyond.
2. Jet Airways – India based, predominately domestic, not the cheapest. Affiliate of Air Asia.
3. Air India – National carrier, now merged with India Airlines the state owned domestic airline. Again not the best value
4. Jetlite – (formally Air Sahara, now part of Jet Airways)
5. IndiGo – Go network, inc. Delhi to Goa
For Indian domestic flights schedules and which airline flies which route the following link is recommended: www.mapsofindia.com/flight-schedule/
United States
1. southwest.com
2. spirit.com – US, Caribbean, Bahamas and Latin America
3. allegiantair.com – Hubs in Las Vegas, Phoenix, Los Angeles and some Florida airports
4. jetblue.com – Hub at JFK in New York. Main destinations are Boston, Orlando, Long Beach, CA, most of the Caribbean and Peru in South America.
5. Frontier Airlines or Ted,
6. AirTran Airways
Mexican/Central America (internal):
1. Inter Jet
2. Vivaerobus – Mexico internal and to/from USA
Brazilian (internal):
1. TAM, Gol, BRA, Ocean Air, Web Jet
2. Pantanal Linhas Airline (Pantanal only)
Between the Middle East and the Rest of the World
Although not ULCC, these are the super-connector airlines that offer the lowest fares with full service between the Middle East and almost the rest of the world. The Gulf is handily placed between Europe, Asia, Africa and America, all in range of modern long-haul jets, and thus able to consolidate traffic to and from many destinations. Long-haul to long-haul makes for efficiency and thus cheaper fares. Passengers catch planes at the huge airports on their way to somewhere else. These four carriers flew 50m customers in 2008 and 115m in 2014 on 700 planes (soon to be 900). All rate in the top ten airlines in the world.
1. emirates.com – Based in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, it is owned by the government of Dubai. It is the largest airline in the Middle East, operating over 3,300 flights per week from its hub at Dubai to more than 144 cities in 78 countries across six continents. Emirates is the world’s biggest international carrier. Serves 32 cities in Europe. Serves Orlando, Boston and Seattle.
2. qatarairways.com – Serves 32 cities in Europe. State-owned flag carrier of Qatar. Headquartered in Doha, the airline operates a hub-and-spoke network, linking over 140 international destinations across Africa, Central Asia, Europe, Far East, South Asia, Middle East, North America, South America and Oceania using a fleet of more than 100 aircraft. Serves 32 cities in Europe.
3. etihad.com – Based in Abu Dhabi. National airline of United Arab Emirates. The airline operates more than 1,000 flights per week to over 120 passenger and cargo destinations in the Middle East, Africa, Europe, Asia, Australia and the Americas, with a fleet of 117 Airbus and Boeing aircraft as of May 2015.
4. turkishairlines.com. The national flag carrier airline of Turkey, headquartered in Istanbul. As of February 2015, it operates scheduled services to 261 destinations in Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Americas, making it the fourth-largest carrier in the world by number of destinations. Istanbul is a short-haul flight from 55 European cities. Non-stop flights to San Francisco, and soon Atlanta and Mexico City.
ONLINE TRAVEL AGENTS
It’s all quite overwhelming as there are so many options. Not all search engines are equal.
The traditional big sites either work with or are owned by the airline companies and don’t offer unbiased fares. You need to search as many flight search websites as you can in order to ensure you are leaving no stone unturned. Moreover, many sites don’t list budget carriers because those airlines don’t want to pay a booking commission. The best search engines are the ones that have no affiliation with any airline and make their money via advertising, not bookings.
All of these websites have their weaknesses and do not include every airline. You aren’t going to find Air Asia, Ryan Air, or most other ULLCs on large sites like Kayak, Expedia, or Orbitz. U.S. booking sites tend to not have the obscure foreign airlines that you see on international sites like Skyscanner or Momondo. Booking sites have blind spots since they don’t cover every region of the world and every airline equally. There is no perfect airline search engine. Even the best have their faults.
The real solution is finding the sites that best fit your specific travel needs — cost, layover times, ease of use and some specific functions not offered by all sites. Each has strengths using different interfaces and algorithms that produce different results.
The best technique is to check one of the traditional sites, and then play around with the new guys and see if they can pull an upset. Then, before you book, check the airline’s own website to make sure it’s not even cheaper there. And as long as you’ve popped over, it’s almost always a good idea to do the actual booking from the airline’s site: It’s often easier to take care of the minutiae – entering your awards number, choosing seats and paying for extra luggage, as well as changing your reservation later if necessary (to make a change in the traditional site requires making the change with them, not the actual airline).
Many sites waive the booking fees if the booking is done between 2 and 5 AM (plus internet speeds usually much faster). Also erase your IP address after each search. As the sites see you returning and thus more likely to make a booking, the prices may mysteriously increase.
Considerations – Some peculiarities of the individual sites
a. The online experience. Some sites are particularly pleasant to use, in both superficial and substantive ways, others a pain. Most straightforward is the amount of time it takes each site to process your searches, especially when you’re pressed for time, and then to process the personal information and payment. If you’re focused just on flights there is google.com/flights, with shockingly instantaneous results.
b. When your dates or destination are flexible, most of the bigger sites offer to find you cheaper flights if you’re willing to fly one to three days earlier or later, but their systems seem inflexible, and the resulting grids dizzying. Skyscanner is particularly good with price alerts.
c. Some will hold your reservation for between a day and a few weeks. That’s great, for example, if you need to coordinate plans with others.
d. When you need a complex, multi-leg route, not every site allows multi-leg itineraries.
e. Look at layover times as some flights that are minimally cheaper have huge layovers. Some filters allow you to choose to sort by trip length, then that $401 flight might disappear under an avalanche of $9,999 flights with 89-minute layovers. That’s an exaggeration but worth it? That’s up to you.
f. Many do not include local airlines (for example Southwest in the USA and Air Asia in SE Asia). If your trip starts and ends outside North America or Europe, American and European sites often can’t find cheap fares on regional carriers elsewhere in the world. Googling or asking foreign friends is a good start.
THE BEST OF THEM ALL:
1. google.com/flights – Shows flights for the next month or longer with prices which fluctuate by day, weekend and holiday wildly. If your travel dates are not fixed, this allows huge savings. Lightning fast. Another plus is that it warns you about drawbacks – long layovers, if flying in a prop plane. It is most helpful with complicated international trips. Excludes most foreign low-cost carriers from its searches. I go here first and get the lowest fares over a month. Then select your cheapest date. It is not biased toward certain airlines and provides the most complete list of flight options for a given itinerary.
2. skyscanner.com – Possibly the cheapest flights and often has local airlines not on other sites. Allows you to ask for the cheapest flights anywhere from any city and lists them in order of cost. Or you can get all the flights from one city to a destination and it will show a graphic trend over the course of a month allowing you to pick the cheapest time to fly if the date is not critical. Has good price alerts. Covers more of the world than any other site with more regional airlines. For example only site that covers flying around South Pacific.
3. Then try the individual airline – it may be best to book here as cancellations, registering miles and most things are easier. Sometimes cheaper but sometimes more expensive. onetravel.com – Often the cheapest flights and I used to use it regularly as it is easy to navigate and pay. But refunds cost $150 so I use much less often.
ONLINE TRAVEL AGENTS – THE TRADITIONAL SITES
For those who want to book an entire trip — flight, hotel, car rental, activities, tours, cruises, deals — in one place, the traditional sites will definitely save you time. Most of the traditional sites are all dependably similar, their lowest offerings rarely differing more than a few dollars.
The Big Ones.
1. expedia.com – Does not offer to find you cheaper flights if you’re willing to fly one to three days earlier or later. Often does multi-leg trips well. Expedia owns travelocity, hotwire, hotels.com, orbitz, trivago and probably many more.
2. orbitz.com – For flights gives side-by-side comparisons. Gives travel delay updates that can be sent to PDA or cellphone. Often does multi-leg trips well.
3. travelocity.com – Includes taxes and fees. Best customer service with agents available by phone 24/7. But has an unpleasant interface. Travelocity does multi-leg trips, but only after you finally find the multi-leg function hidden in “Advanced Search Options”.
4. kayak.com – Input simplicity. Good at open-jaw travel – fly into one city, out of another. But can simply overwhelm one with too many options, forcing you to click through page after page of near-identical offerings to find something different (and their filters barely help).
5. google.com/flights – Unbelievably fast.
Auction Sites.
1. priceline.com. Has an opaque bidding system that works well with hotels when you do not require a specific hotel — can often save 30 to 50 percent on hotels by placing an absurdly low bid and allowing the site to charge your card before stating exactly which hotel you are paying for. You name the part of town you need, the hotel category, and the rate you’re willing to pay, and Priceline either accepts or rejects your bid. To find out the lowest bid it will accept, go to biddingfortravel.com to find out what bids Priceline accepted and rejected for specific hotels on specific dates.
Savings are less and more rare on flights, but do exist, particularly on domestic flights booked just a few days in advance. Savings top out at about 40 percent, so try bidding 10 or 20 percent below the cheapest standard fare. If your bid fails, no problem: Book through Priceline’s regular service, which fares as well as other big-name sites. Two caveats: You can choose the date but not the departure time of your flight (or the airline), and you might be stuck with an annoying layover. But other than advance planning, there is no better way to shave dollars off a standard domestic ticket.
Non Traditional Sites. Listed in some order of value.
Some only work on domestic flights within a limited list of cities with base rates that are not always competitive.
1. jetcost.com
2. opodo.com
3. bravofly.com
4. rumbo.com. Spanish
5. momondo.com – Often slightly cheaper. Clear presentation about options. Often wastes your time with flights that disappear when you go to book them. Often directed to European booking sites, that charge in euros, forcing you to seek out conversion rates then wonder if your card will give the same rate. to book them.
6. vayama.com – At one time, was great for multi-leg, international searches, but now not so good.
7. travelzoo.com – Picks global airfare bargains.
8. google.com/flights – Very fast. Has replaced Google Flight Explorer which doesn’t seem to work anymore.
9. hotwire.com 10. travel-ticker.com
11. cheapoair.com – Frequently kicks you off to a results page before completing the search.
12. airticketsdirect.com
13. mobissimo.com
14. edreams.com
15. bookingbuddy.com
16. routehappy.com – Uses an algorithm for other factors you might be willing to pay more for, including seat space and electrical outlets.
17. hipmunk.com – The default setting orders the flights by “agony,” dropping flights with long layovers or sky-high prices down the list. It has good graphic displays of flights and layovers. But wastes your time with flights that disappear when you go
18. getgoing.com – Will give you a discount if you give it two destinations you like and let it pick one.
19. adioso.com – You start by just typing in your starting point and destination, and mold preferences from there.
20. iTravel2000.com
21. flightnetwork.com – Can sometimes find very cheap flights.
22. tripsta.com – I list this only to strongly discourage using it. It undercuts most other search engine by a few dollars so will often appear first. Flights you think you booked are repetitively cancelled or simply don’t occur. They have screwed me up so many times, that I always bypass it, pay a little more and get what you need. Very dysfunctional.
23. Secretflying.com. Finds good flight deals and error fares (usually mistaken omission of the fuel surcharge). Error fares are most frequent with more than one airline on the ticket or open-jaw trips and often occur with Online Travel Agency and human errors. Follow on Facebook (click ‘Like” and then ‘Get Notifications” to receive notifications), join their mailing list or visit their web page frequently. You can narrow down your preferences to flights departing from certain countries, and they’ll send you an email when a deal pops up.
24. theflightdeal.com. Finds flight deals from and around the US and explains how to use stopovers. Stopovers are any connection over 24 hours to less than the maximum stay for that stopover (varies but can be up to 30 days). To find them use google.com/flights or expertflyer.com (a pay for service that lists the full routing rules for each fare to see any potential stopovers). Often the stopover has a fee (usually less than $100 plus taxes) but for that price, you get to see another country or city.
WEBSITES THAT CATER TO STUDENTS and Sometimes Teachers. Both require proof of attendance.
If you are a full-time student, teacher or under 26 (in some cases 30), you may not realize it but you are already getting a great deal as these tickets are heavily discounted. Not only is the price reduced, but so are restrictions on tickets. At age 25 and 11 months you could fly London – Mexico City – OVERLAND – Panama – London with American Airlines off-season for £425 with a $25 date change charge.
At age 26 the same ticket would cost £550 with a date change four times inflated. STA and other agencies specialize in these discounted fares. Under 26 is also the magic age for many discounted rail (particularly European) and flight passes. For those lucky enough to be under 26 what better reason is there to travel before you are no longer!
1. studentuniverse.com
2. STAtravel.co.uk
SOME LOCAL SITES USEFUL IF IN THE COUNTRY
1. submarinoviagens.com – For Brazil. In Brazilian and not in English.
2. travelchinaguide.com – The most reliable booking for trains, flights and hotels in China. For trains, it gives how many seats are left which is very useful. With so many people and different holidays, it is often necessary to book weeks ahead at certain times of the year.
ctrip.com – I used this on my first travels to China in 2014 but when back in 2015, it was highly dysfunctional.
3. bingtravel.com – Only works from the US.
4. nusatrip.com – Covers Indonesia and is a great website that lists all airlines, is fast and convenient to use.
For Indonesia in general, the domestic flight network is growing and in a constant state of flux. There are also local carriers that service small routes, are cramped and may have dated aircraft. Website information for small airlines is often nonexistent. The best option for them is to check with local airline offices and travel agents. Refer to local chapter information in Lonely Planet for the names of the airlines. Use travel agents or simply go to the airport and compare prices for the various airline offices. Many are strictly cash based and offer last-minute deals if there are empty seats. It is essential to confirm and reconfirm or you may well be bumped.
It is easy to book online with Nusatrip. In my 8 weeks in Indonesia in 2015 (did not go to Sumatra or Kalimantin), I had 8 flights and used only Garuda and Sriwijayaair, both reliable airlines.
a. garuda-indonesia.com – Indonesian national airline that serves Bali and Jakarta from Australia and points across Asia.
b. sriwijayaair.com – serves Dili in East Timor from Bali + many other flights
NB Avoid Lion/Wings. Could never book flights online, only at airport. Often cancels flights.
CHARTER FLIGHTS
Charter flights are almost always return, returning normally 7 or 14 days after arrival and always from the same place. Charter flights generally fly from destinations in Europe to other European destinations. Long haul charter destinations are: Kenya, Cancún, The Gambia (good value and unusually on offer one-way), Israel, Turkey, Egypt, Greece, Thailand (Islands), Sri Lanka, Goa, the Caribbean (sometimes Cuba) and sometimes Brazil, UAE and Canada.
These are useful to look into especially if you want a cheap short independent break, although prices are never that wonderful unless you are leaving at very short notice (cheap last minute fights to Goa or Cancun are particularly famous) and in low season. If travelling from the UK, take a look at www.charterflights.co.uk for some ideas about prices and destinations. If you are looking to head to West Africa, charter flights will probably be one of your cheapest options. See the excellent www.point-afrique.com for schedules (all flights fly in and out of Paris to Francophone West African nations; site en Français).
ROURND THE WORLD TRIPS
Whether these are great or not remains the mother of all questions for RTW travellers, and the subject of much vitriol on many of the travel forums. People seem vehemently for or against a round-the-world ticket, with little room in between. I’m a big proponent of not buying a round-the-world ticket, mostly because some of the places I loved the most – and spent the most time in – weren’t even on my initial itinerary. A person you meet who tells you it’s somewhere you cannot miss, some article that catches your eye along the way; many reasons why you want the freedom and flexibility to do as you please, as you go. It could be more important to have the flexibility and freedom of being able to change your plans on a whim, than it was to calculate the aggregate savings of a RTW ticket. A RTW ticket would have run me less in terms of bare costs, but think of the fun you’ve had in being wholly spontaneous was a fair opportunity cost for those savings.
Many travellers set off on a round the world trip (RTW) with just that ticket. What round the world really means is Australia/Europe (depending on where you start) and back with stop-offs (in North or South America) and if you break this mould, you pay for it.
Worth knowing and little known is that some RTW tickets don’t require you to book all flights before departing and can offer extra flexibility to book as you go (although this can get more expensive).
All of the above RTW options are valid for one year and date changes are free or with a small charge. Changing destinations en route (if possible) will incur a larger charge – if you do this with Oneworld it can actually extend your ticket from that point (but that policy seems to vary office to office). All of these tickets are excellent value for money if you utilize them properly.
Pros:
• Date changes are normally free or pretty cheap.
• Many feel secure in planning a grand route and knowing a schedule in advance. This structure can help and you can make changes.
• They normally work out cheaper and from London are bargains especially if on a simple Oz and back route in the low season.
Cons:
• In most cases you are limited to 12 months to complete your travels.
• You are going to have to plan your route and lock yourself into it before you go. Route changes on the road will cost you.
• Best to have Australia as a focus (or departure point) of your trip.
• You will need to take some one-way local flights anyway and often back track for your next leg. No round-the-world ticket will cover budget airlines like Air Asia, Ryan Air or Southwest Airlines – which will be cheaper for smaller regional jumps.
• Limited to major hubs, you will have to take internal flights to get to the likes of Nepal, Vietnam (without back-tracking) and notably across the Darien Gap (South to Central America).
Resources:
1. Star Alliance – Air Canada, Air China, Air New Zealand, ANA, Asiana Airlines, Austrian, bmi, EgyptAir, LOT Polish Airlines, Lufthansa, Scandinavian Airlines, Shanghai Airlines, Singapore Airlines, South African Airways, Spanair, SWISS, TAP Portugal, Thai Airways, Turkish Airlines, United, US Airways. RTW ticket is based on mileage (and not “stops”). Overland mileage between destinations counts toward your total.
They offer a round the world ticket and Circle Pacific ticket. Other recent members South African and Ethiopian really open Africa to round the worlders. TAM (Brazilian) jumped to One World in 2014 and LAN Chile is oneworld so not the best option for getting to South America.
2. One World – Aer Lingus, American Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific, Finnair, Qatar Airways, JAL, Iberia, Lan and Qantas, offering either of a Global explorer or a Oneworld explorer, depending on the amount of continents and stops you want to include in your trip. Good for South America due to the inclusion of LAN in the OneWorld alliance.
This is often the ticket to get for a trip including South America, since LAN Chile and TAM (Brazilian) are members it has an excellent South American network and can get you to Easter Island as a stop off. The Explorer ticket is often the best value ticket on the market and is based upon the number of continents (continents defined by the airline, not in strict geographical terms) you choose to visit or pass through.
3. SkyTeam Alliance – Aeroflot, Aeromexico, Air France, Alitalia, China Southern Airlines, Continental Airlines, CSA Czech Airlines, Delta Air Lines, KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, Korean Air, Northwest Airlines, Air Europa, Copa Airlines, Kenya Airways.
They offer various plans based on maximum miles/km with a limited (3-15) stops. They also offer Go packages for various continents (Africa, Europe, Asia) and large countries (USA/Canada, Mexico, Russia, China) so if you want to greatly extend your ticket to get around a region you can.
4. Airtreks RTW ticket options is another option. Used them for the a series of long-hauls or a set of open-jaw tickets when you know you have to be somewhere specific.
5. The Great Escapade (Air New Zealand, Singapore Airlines and Virgin Atlantic). The Great Escapade is mileage based (29,000 miles, one Atlantic crossing, one Pacific crossing allowed) with unlimited stopovers (except in New Zealand).
South America is not included and South Africa is the only African stop. But if that’s not a problem for you and you want a basic ticketing.
• BootnAll’s travel planner is further option for planning round-the-world travel. A new offering from Bootsnall, you can use them to add custom build and price itineraries for your long and short-haul ticket strings.
• Nomadic Matt’s Travel Hacking Guide (primarily US-focused) on mileage and airfare.
• For the Canadians, Steven’s Travel Hacking for Canadians.
• Airtreks has a sample timeline for potential round-the-world travellers here.
Away from Round the Word (RTW) travel and tickets:
Remember not all trips have to be RTW or extended duration trips. Few have the luxury of time for this kind of travel. Regional or bi-regional trips for a few months are much more practical, cheaper and just as good (if not better). It’s the feelings of more than a few, that a year is too long to travel for unless working en route, and that a few weeks or one, two, three four month individual trips are more profitable and practical. Whatever you have time and resource for. Better to walk around a room than remain seated – no matter how far/long you go.
OTHER WEBSITES USEFUL WHEN FLYING
1. seatguru.com – The best seats (usually with the most space) and the worst (those with no window, no overhead storage, immovable armrests, bathroom traffic, no power ports, limited recline, or an obstructed view of the movie) varied with the airline and aircraft, but all are revealed here.
2. awardplanners.com – To use those frequent-flyer miles but there are no seats available, for a $40 fee, they will figure out how to get you there and back. They find alternate routes or partner airlines.
3. flightexplorer.com – FastTrack section gives the best estimate of actual arrival time.
4. webflyer.com – What is the best frequent-flier program. The Head2Head section details the pros and cons of all of them – which let you use miles to upgrade on even the cheapest fares, which have no blackout times. The Award/Upgrade Index tells the difficulty in getting free seats and upgrades on different airlines.
5. unclaimedbaggage.com – Connects you to the Unclaimed Baggage Centre in Scottsboro, Alabama where most lost luggage ends up regardless of the carrier. It is a clearing house that has purchased your luggage from the airline that has given up on trying to unite you with your luggage. The stuff is then sold on its website. They won’t search for a specific item, but the more remarkable the thing you’re looking for is, the better the chances of locating it via the Let’s Shop and What Is It? sections.
6. frequentflier.com – Profiles airline, hotel and charge-card reward programs and has links to Web sites for airports worldwide.
7. airconsumer.ost.dot.gov – US Department of Transportation. Gives a wide range of airline data, from consumer rights and items prohibited on planes to on-time and lost-luggage records.
8. checkmytrip.com – Owned by Amadeus, the algorithm used by most companies, simply enter your flight code and last name and you can confirm if the booking is actually made.
9. sleepinginairports.com – Very useful when you have an early morning flight or a long layover or you simply don’t want to pay for a hotel room. Lists best and worst by continent, airport lounges and hotels and give tons of good tips for making it a safe experience.
10. myTSA.com – Answers all security policies of America.
11. gateguru.com – The home page shows current and future journeys. For current journeys, as they receive data on your next departure, it populates that in an expanded state. The Home screen also gives you direct access to our AirportCard. The airport list is pre-populated based on closest airports, but you can also access any airport via the search bar.
12. flightaware.com – Free, worldwide airline flight tracking and airport status for air travelers. FlightAware provides live flight data, airport delays, fuel prices, airline operational tools, weather maps, flight planning, flight routes, oceanic tracks, and navigation charts, as well as aviation news and photos.
13. loungebuddy.com – Everything you wanted to know about airport lounges. Find the perfect lounge for your needs based on ratings, reviews, photos, amenities, location, cost, and access methods. Take the guesswork out of complicated lounge entry requirements. Whether you’re a casual traveler looking to access a lounge on the occasional leisure trip or a road warrior battling through the airport every week, simply tell them about yourself and they’ll show you the lounges you can access at no cost or for a one-time fee. If you already have your itineraries on Concur, sync your account, and they’ll pull all the relevant data over in order to determine the lounges you can access. In addition, LoungeBuddy gives you the ability to purchase instant lounge access with just a few taps on your mobile device. Browse through their list of supported locations worldwide, and book your lounge access in 60 seconds or less.
Where’s the Safest Place to Sit on a Plane? (17 accidents since 1985 with both fatalities and survivors were studied)
While it depends on the nature of the accident, middle seats in the rear of the plane have been historically had the best survival with a 28% fatality rate. The last row is the best of these as it is closest to one of the exits in case of a fire. Front seats have 38% fatalities, middle 39% and rear 32%.
Emergency Exits. Fires can be deadly in 2-3 minutes. Regulations state that a plane must be able to evacuate in 90 seconds. The five row rule says that sitting more than five rows from a viable exit have a greater chance of dying than living.
Safety Cards in Back Seat Pockets. 89% of passengers don’t read the emergency procedures on the cards. And only half watch the preflight safety presentation.
Number of commercial airline accidents in the US since 1985: 368. Survival rate in those accidents: 96%. Lifetime odds of dying from an air-transport accident: 1 in 8015.