Travel doesn’t have to cost a fortune. Between online travel search engines, Twitter fare deals and frequent flier strategies, there are tons of ways to find and book a cheap flight. Here are a few tips:
1. Be flexible with your travel dates. For the lowest fares, book flights leaving on a Saturday, or midweek on a Tuesday or Wednesday.
2. Be open to departures from/to smaller airports outside of the major cities – the flights usually cost less.
3. When booking flights, check the price and allowance of check-in baggage. It’s sometimes better to pay that little bit extra for a flight if it comes with an allowance of two checked in bags for free! http://www.kayak.com/airline-fees is a great resource for comparing baggage fees across all airlines.
4. Use a website like www.kayak.com, www.dohop.com www.skyscanner.com or www.airfarewatchdog.com which are all online search engines that compare hundreds of sites in one simple search. Plug in your departure and arrival cities, your preferred dates of travel and these sites will pull up the cheapest fares. Sign up for ‘fare alerts’ from these sites to receive emails about cheap flights to popular cities.
5. Consider a stopover in your flights – not great for the environment since take-offs and landings are the worst for fuel emissions – but it’s generally cheaper than a direct flight.
6. Be organized and book your flights early. Flights generally become more expensive closer to departure.
7. DIY – Book everything yourself instead of using a travel agent. With a little research you can get cheaper flights and save on those extra agent fees.
8. If you’re looking for an island getaway, www.cheapcarribbean.com has great all-round deals to the Caribbean. You can search by destination, all-inclusive resorts or family vacation packages. You can also build your own personal vacation packages and each week there’s a featured sale.
9. Take advantage of the following airline twitter deals:
– Look for the United Airlines hashtag #twares that appears on their Twitter feed. It’s a promotional code that lets it’s followers access super cheap airfares.
– Follow JetBlue and receive exclusive news on their special deals and discounts.
– Cruise the hashtags #traveldeals, #traveltuesday and #farealert to find all the latest airline deals tweeted by people from all over the globe.
10. After you’ve found a cheap flight, get more bang for your buck by booking it online with a card like American Express Gold Rewards Card. Cardmembers earn double points on eligible gas, grocery and drugstore purchases, as well as on travel purchases charged to the Card, including flights, hotels, car rentals, cruises and packages. Points can then be redeemed to pay for any travel – including sweet flight deals you find online! For more information, check out www.amex.ca
