Questions for You Frequent Flyers

Use google flight search...set price tracking/alerts for whatever trip you are looking at...fares go up usually as you get closer..I book direct or via the Chase portal (since you get a bigger rebate being a chase cardholder)...

 

I work in the airline industry. No website will give you special fares outside of a few exceptions. And those fares tend to come with awful conditions. All of the traditional tricks don't really work. There was an era when airlines used to be very basic with their revenue management so fare pricing tended to be quite clunky and static. The Tuesday thing was because years ago, airlines used to have employees manually file fares (as in literally typing out fares that went into an airline industry database) and a lot of airlines filed on Tuesdays. Nowadays, the ATPCO and OAG database that houses fares still exists but reservation systems can just directly transmit fares and scheduling information without having employees manually input things.

Because fare management has become more complex and dynamic, none of the traditional tricks work anymore. Now there are a few airlines (mostly state owned airlines in developing countries ) that still manage pricing like its 2000 but you're likely never flying on those airlines.

In short, just use google flights and compare prices. And check things frequently. Airlines are charging higher than normal fares right now for almost everything so the deals that existed pre-covid are gone in a lot of cases. Also always buy direct from the airline. Online Travel agencies serve no value today and only create headaches during disruptions. The only tricks that still exist are the following:

1. Lets say you wanted to go to London. You might price out IAH-LHR in business class and get a price of $3000. But if you priced out BOS-LHR, you see a price of $2000. It might be worth it to buy the boston fare and just buy a separate flight that connects you between Houston and Boston. When I was a Delta frequent flyer, I could get them to link the two reservations together so that they'd check my bag all the way through and if there was a disruption, they'd rebook the whole itinerary instead of treating them as two separate itineraries. But not all airlines do this so it comes with lots of risk if you dont' build some slack into the two flights.

2. Another scenario might be if you wanted to fly from Houston to New York City. The direct flight might be $300 one way but you can find connecting itineraries like IAH-LGA-BOS for only $200. In that scenario, you could buy a one way and just get off the plane in LGA. Airlines generally are really trying to stop this practice so you should only do this on one way itineraries (and if you are booking roundtrip, you'd want to book two one way itineraries). Also this only works if you aren't checking baggage. The only times I've ever done this is when I plan to get off early on the return journey of a round trip. So I might book IAH-LHR direct but return I'm flying LHR-IAH-AUS and I just get off at IAH. Because its an international flight, you have to pick up your bags regardless of whether there is a connection so you can just walk out of the airport even if you checked a bag.

 

Use Google Flights to monitor airfare. Note that Southwest doesn't show up on Google Flights, so you have to search that separately. From my experience the best time to book flights in the past year or so has been late on Monday to Thursday evenings. Like after 10PM CST.

I believe with United and American, you can call to get your airfare price matched lower if the fare drops after you've booked it as long it wasn't a Basic Economy ticket. I usually fly those two and I have their credit cards, so I get free checked in bags with them.

Lots of different airport selections also. For example, if you're flying to LA- you can fly into LAX, John Wayne or Long Beach. Usually those are all somewhat close to wherever you are staying at in LA with a rental vehicle. Sometimes the rates fluctuate a lot between some of these nearby airports. Most major cities now have multiple airports to choose from so can decide on that as well. The rental car rates also fluctuate from airport to airport within the same city so be mindful of that as well.

 

I fly a fair amount and second a lot of what @geeimsobored posted. I’ve flown internationally a lot usually to Asia and flights from the West coast are significantly cheaper than flights from the Midwest. Own thing I often do is use frequent flier miles to get to the West or east coast for an international flight and then fly on a different airline. For example on my most recent trip I flew Air Canada from Hong Kong to San Francisco and then used frequent flyer miles from SF back to US. If you do this though you have to make sure you bike a cushion between flights. Since it’s not the Sam airline they obviously won’t transfer bags for you and if there is a delay in one leg they won’t help you with transferring.

The other thing is timing on when you travel. The cheapest flights seem to be after the Thanksgiving rush but before Christmas. If you can travel in early December there seems to be a lot of deals. Also after Christmas until about February there also seems to be a good travel time.

One more tip is if you have a credit card with miles use it a lot. I pay a lot of bills using my Credit card so wracked up a lot of travel miles with that. As long as you can pay off your balance at the end of the month you’re fine and can earn free trips surprisingly fast

 

You had me at hello.