Top 10 Tips to Snag Cheap Airfare

1. DON’T ASSUME THAT TRAVELOCITY, ORBITZ, EXPEDIA, AND SIDESTEP ALL HAVE THE SAME FARES 
They don’t. Especially on international fares, one of these online travel agencies could have a fare several hundred less or higher than another. Check all the online agencies, and use multi-site search engine like Kayak or Booking Buddy. Also, most online travel agencies such as Expedia exclude many of the smaller discount airlines such as Virgin America (which was recently added to Travelocity) and Orbitz only recently added JetBlue.

2. SEARCH AIRLINE SITES INDIVIDUALLY
Increasingly, airlines have “private” sales, reserving their very best fares for their own sites. With the exception of Southwest, which sells fares on its own site exclusively, most of the airlines that do this are smaller domestic airlines or large international carriers, but we’ve even seen Delta do it, and we’re not talking here just about last minute weekend fares.

3. TRY A FLEXIBLE FARE SEARCH 
If you’re at all flexible, you can sometimes save hundreds by adjusting your travel dates, often by just a day or two. Travelocity has one of the best flexible date search options in the industry because it searches 330 days ahead. To use this feature, simply click on the “Flexible dates” button just below the “to” and “from” boxes on the flight search engine (check these step by step instructions if you’re unsure how this works).

4. COMBINE WEEKEND FARES 
Last minute weekend fares are often great deals, but most people don’t realize that they can construct itineraries by combining two of these fares. Let’s say you want to fly from Boston to San Antonio next weekend. If there’s a Boston to Atlanta fare for $128 round-trip, and an Atlanta to San Antonio fare for $108 round-trip, then you can fly to your destination and save creatively.

5. SIGN UP FOR DING FARES, AA DEALFINDER, AND OTHER AIRLINES’ PROMOTIONAL EMAILS
Southwest offers daily “Ding” deals that pop up on your computer (announced by an audible “ding”, thus the name) that can save a few bucks off their already low fares. American has begun offering discounts of 10-25% when you sign up for its DealFinder feature and enter a promo code on its site. It’s also a good idea to register with airlines’ newsletters because they often send out special deals and promo codes.

6. BUY HOTEL + AIR PACKAGES
It’s often cheaper to buy an air/hotel package rather than airfare alone. When we say “cheaper” we mean that the total package with hotel is often less than the airfare without the hotel component. Lastminute.com is the online leader in this field. Usually, they work best if there are two of you traveling since the hotels are based on double occupancy and they’re especially useful for last minute travel.

7. SOME OF THE BEST FARES APPEAR ON SATURDAYS 
Although they’re much less common than in past years, probably because the airlines have installed new software to catch them, some of the best “blooper” fares and other low fares show up on Saturday mornings. We can only speculate as to why.

8. CHECK FARES OFTEN 
Because airfares fluctuate like the stock market, you need to check them every day, sometimes two or three times a day, if you’re serious about saving money. Airlines can update domestic fares three times a day during the week, and once on Saturday and Sunday (international fares change less frequently). And another little tip: be sure to clear the “cookies” on your internet browser Why do this? Some fare search engines may return the results you viewed earlier rather than the new, lower results.

9. COMBINE TWO SEPARATE FARES RATHER THAN BUYING ONE FARE 
It’s often cheaper to buy two fares rather than one. Let’s say you’re flying from New York to Eleuthera in the Bahamas. Check on one of the big sites like Expedia or Orbitz for a single fare (for example, JFK to Governor’s Harbor, Bahamas) and then do two separate searches (JFK to Nassau and Nassau to Governor’s Harbor). Since JetBlue flies JFK/Nassau you’ll want to check JetBlue.com separately). Chances are the two-fare strategy will save you a lot of cash. This fare trick also works for flights to Europe.

10. BUY TICKETS ON AN AIRLINE THAT WILL REFUND THE DIFFERENCE IF A FARE GOES DOWN 
Let’s say you’ve done your best to find the lowest fare, and then the day after purchase your non-refundable fare goes down $100. Sure, if you ask for it you can get a refund for the difference if the only thing that changed was the price, but some airlines will charge you a service fee as high as $150 for domestic fares or from $250-$350 on international ones, wiping out any savings.