Airline Travel

If you are planning a trip or vacation and are looking for ways to save on airline travel, look no further.

The first thing you need to know is that you never need to pay ‘list price’. Airlines have many tiers of pricing, and the same seat can sell for prices differing in the hundreds of dollars, depending on where, when and how it is purchased.

Here are a few tips to start you on your way. You will find more in the ‘Travel Industry Secrets’ guide found in the sidebar. Happy flying!

• Ask the Experts: Your first step would be to ask your travel agent for advice on when to purchase airline tickets. He or she will know off the top of their heads which airlines offer discounts and when. For example, some airlines offer ‘earlybird’ pricing, and some also drop their prices as the trip date gets closer if no one has purchased the seat. Also, during any given 24 hours flight prices may fluctuate. I know of one gentleman who kept track of his chosen airline’s offerings on Expedia in order to learn their patterns, and now stays up to the wee hours of the night to book his tickets, as he knows this is when they offer their best discounted pricing.
• Upgrades: Some airlines will allow for a certain number of upgrades when the plane is not full. While it’s true that airlines have cut back substantially on offering complimentary upgrades to passengers, they may still do so if they have experienced business- or first-class cancellations, or need to move passengers around for weight-and-balance purposes. To stand your best chance of being selected, always dress in a professional and clean-cut manner and be polite and friendly. You can also try simply asking at the check-in counter if there is any possibility of getting a free or discounted upgrade, and sometimes your request will be granted. Success will depend on many factors, such as how booked the flight is, the mood and authority level of the ticket attendant and the way you ask for it. Also, you can sometimes get a free or discounted flight by being on an ‘overbooked’ flight and being willing to wait until the next one can be arranged for you, but this is not something you have any control over.

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• Flexibility: Are you flexible in your travel times or dates? By going ‘standby’ on an airline, you can hang out and wait until a seat becomes free or someone cancels, and you can often get cheaper last-minute tickets.
• Already purchased: Simply, sometimes people buy tickets and their plans change. When tickets are non-refundable, you can take advantage of someone else’s need to receive some money back on their dollar and get a bargain price (remember, if they don’t sell their tickets they get nothing, so any money they can recover is a bonus). People who need to get rid of pre-purchased tickets can be found in many places, such as your local classifieds or craigslist (www.craigslist.org), online auctions such as ebay, and you can even try using google to search (for example google ‘tickets to xyz’ and see if any ads come up that look personal, rather than corporate).
• Be an INSIDER: The best tip of all is to work for the airlines. Airline employees wordwide receive incredible discounts on travel, and not just airline tickets. Many airline travel benefit programs include deeply discounted resort, rental car, cruise fares and more. Even if you just work part-time in the baggage handling department, if you work for a participating airline you can enjoy the best savings on travel available. As an example, employees of our national airline can fly anywhere in North America for approximately $20 round-trip, and to Europe for $90 or so.

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