Shopping online for airline tickets? Overwhelmed? Me too! I’ve been so frustrated with booking flights (and airlines are not making it any easier). I compiled my notes from booking a flight for our recent trip to Italy (I took the above picture out our window over southern France on May 16th, 2017.
There are so many search options that it’s hard to know if you have the best deal. Do you suffer from analysis paralysis? It’s easy to do when you can never be sure if you are over paying for a ticket or not! Here are my top 6 Lessons Learned:
- Bad Luck with Travel Agents – I tried three different travel agents and none of them came up with better flights than I was finding. I thought they had inside access to airlines? If so, it was not helping. They’re better for booking complete tours.
- Be flexible – at least within a few days. If you are set on specific dates then you are at an immediate disadvantage. Many search engines allow you to select a + or – for number of days around your travel date. Many are now showing date grids and histograms forecasting price fluctuations. Also, check multi-City, where you fly into one airport and out of another (open jaw). This can save time and money. Our last trip we flew into Paris and out of Rome.
- Start tracking early – most search engines and airlines will notify you of price fluctuations. I read that Tuesdays are the best day to book and airlines offer new discounts on Sundays. I checked prices two or three times a week on Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays, 3 months prior to my travel dates. The more you check the more you will know when a good deal comes around. You can buy too early and too late. Again, the more you check the more you will “feel” the right time to buy. Most airlines (maybe its a law) allow you to cancel a reservation within 24 hours. Check their policies first. Some others allow cancellation 24 hours just prior to flight time. This is usually for full fare flights.
- Use a few tools – don’t try to use all the possible search tools. Find two or three that work for you. I like Google Flights, Kayak and SkyScanner. Also, check directly with the airlines and sign up for their notifications as well. Be very careful of deep discount sites. If you see a price that’s absurdly low, watch out! Many of these sites buy points or tickets and resell them. I’ve read many posts on multiple sites about airlines not honoring these kinds of tickets. I have also heard of many successful transaction as well, just be wary. A fun airfare app, albeit not very useful, is one called GTFO. I’ll let you figure out what GTFO stands for.
- Ease vs. Price – Do you want to make your flight experience as easy as possible or do you want the cheapest possible flight? Long layovers, multiple connections, odd hours and weird flight paths make for tiresome trips but those will be your best deals. I try to find some balance. Be careful when you do find a great deal. Do you fly from Chicago to Denver for a 4 hour layover that connects to Paris through Charlotte? Look for flight duration to make sure the total flight time is reasonable. I also like to make connections in airports I’m familiar with or at least airports in the states. I would rather connect through Atlanta instead of Charles De Gaulle or Heathrow. Not always possible but I always look for ways to trim the stress.
- Picking your seat, ewe! (sorry, I couldn’t resist) – Seating is important on a 7+ hour flight. Unless your’e flying Business or First Class (lucky you) there are differences in seats in economy. You can try and ask to be bumped up to first class or business class at the gate but that just doesn’t happen anymore (or maybe it’s 1 out of 500). Airlines start moving passengers into business and first class when they over sold on economy. However, the first people to go are those with the most miles and highest status and then even for them it’s luck of the draw. On our recent flight back from Rome the person in front of me told me his wife got bumped up but he didn’t. They both are elite status but her name got drawn first. She took it. “All’s fair…”, I guess. Check Seat Guru where people evaluate their seat choices. For example, our flight was on an American Airlines Airbus 330. Seat Guru showed the seat configuration for that plane and carrier. It highlighted what seats to avoid based on community feedback. Also, airlines try to scam you, like American, into paying for “upgraded” seats. I just waited for the 24 hour mark prior to flight time and was able to choose the exact seats I wanted at no additional cost (this might not be true for airlines like Spirit where you have to buy seats to sit with your traveling companion, for example).
I haven’t mentioned rewards points. I’m not a frequent flyer, I’m in all the reward programs and I did get a free flight to NYC recently but for me that was the exception rather than the rule.
You really need to make a hobby out of getting points, if you’re going to get maximum benefit of rewards programs. I have a friend and fellow travel blogger who bought a pallet of breakfast cereal, he sent in the box tops for bonus miles then donated the cereal to a food-bank and wrote the donation off on his taxes. Now that to me is extreme but it did get him a trip to Ecuador (South America is his destination of choice)!
I have friends that fly three out of four weeks and month and they rack up the miles for all sorts of flight perks. However, research shows that most people get most of their points through other means. I would recommend The Points Guy, he lays out all the ins and outs of accumulating and using points.
Bonus Tips:
- I buy flight insurance because this will be one of you largest single expenses.
- Flying within Europe on the local carriers can be unbelievable cheap. One practice is the “just get there strategy”, fly into whichever airport is the cheapest and then catch a local carrier to your destination city – Frankfurt to Amsterdam: $66
- A quick note on luggage; we each check one bag (on many of the major carriers checked bags are free for overseas flights including domestic connections) and we each take one carry-on that can fit under the seat . Having overhead as an option and not a requirement is another stress-avoider for me. I put my carry-on under my seat then once we get airborne I put it along the front of my seat under my legs. I can then stretch my legs (I’m 6 feet). I never feel the bag under my legs and I can get to it easily.
Hope this helps. Please add your ideas or help improve on mine!
