You need time to locate inexpensive airfare

There are several places to find inexpensive airfare. The best, of course, is the airline counter minutes before the flight is due to take off. The airline will be willing to sell its empty seats at a bargain rate. However, this is not a good way to get a bargain.

The second is your travel agent. However, your travel agent should be one whom you can trust. Most travel agents will offload those airline tickets where they get the highest commission. So, you must be sure that your travel agent is not going to sell you a ticket that is just a little less than the airline rate.

The best place to get an inexpensive fare is the net, provided you are patient and do not mind spending some time locating the best fare. Your first destination should be the airline sites. Very often, they run discounts or offer special fares to travellers buying tickets online.

Next should be large travel sites like Expedia or Travelocity. Some of these large travel sites buy tickets in bulk and then offer them at reduced rates to travellers. You will find that sometimes the fares offered by these big travel sites differ dramatically on international flights. This is because of their individual arrangements with international carriers.

After this, you should visit the search engines that specialize in travel like Sidestep.com. On these sites, you will get to see the fares offered by both airlines as well as smaller travel sites. You can select the one that is the least expensive.

You can even subscribe to low fare alerts. These e-mails inform you of any cuts in ticket rates. Another place to get inexpensive fares is the flexible fare sections of travel sites or the package deals sections. Both these options can help you save several hundred dollars.

Getting cheap airfare to Florida

There are several ways to get cheap airfare to Florida. The easiest is to fly the low cost air carriers. These airlines are no frills airlines; their services may not be comparable to the big airlines but they offer cheap fares.

If, however, you don’t want to compromise on your comfort then you need to visit the sites of all important airlines, and check the fares. You will find that all these airlines put up discounted fares from time to time. Normally, these tickets are released about a fortnight in advance. So, that’s the best time to get cheap ticket to Florida.

You will have to monitor the airline sites carefully to get the discounted ticket. These tickets are pricked up very fast by net-savvy travelers. To make sure that you don’t miss them, you must visit these sites at least twice or thrice every day.

Your next stop should be the large travel sites. These sites work like travel agents, and offer a part of their commission to the travelers. They also compare fares offered by airline sites so that you get a sampling of fares at one point.

There are some sites that keep track of low fares, and keep mailing these fares to their members. To make use of these sites, you need to be their member. This is an easy way to learn about the cheapest fare to Mexico. There’s no harm in calling a few travel sites. Often, this ploy works because the site official also pitches in.

You also have sites that ask you to quote your price. These sites then check the net and call different airlines, to buy the ticket at the price quoted by you. However, such tickets cannot be refunded even if they are on flights that don’t suit you.

It is for you to choose an option that suits you most.

It’s not difficult to find cheap airfare to Europe

Almost everyone wants to go on a holiday to Europe. And almost everyone wants to save money on tickets because every dollar that is saved can make your holiday more memorable. But how do you find cheap airfare to Europe?

There are several travel agents who offer package tours to Europe. You can use any one of them who offers an air-only deal. The chances are that this deal will work out to be cheaper than the transatlantic fares published on the websites of airlines.

If, however, you can’t find such an operator then you need to go through the fare chart, and locate an airline that is offering the lowest. Next, you need to visit the travel site leaders like Travelocity or Expedia and find out the rates being offered by them.

Your journey is still not over. You also need to visit a travel site that uses a search engine to give you the cheapest transatlantic fares Once you have got the cheapest fare, you need to call some of the offline agencies and ask them if they can give you a better deal.

You have one more option. You can go to a “name your price” site like priceline.com and
put down a fare that is at least 15 per cent less than the lowest fare you have found on the net. Who knows it may be your lucky day, and you may walk away with the cheapest possible air ticket to Europe.

You can also try your luck with east European or Asian airlines that fly through Europe on their way home. These are hopping flights, and very often fly empty on some sectors. They also sell their tickets at a discount on these the US-Europe sector. You can always make use of these seats.

Free airfare is a misleading concept

There is nothing like free airfare. It is a most misleading concept because no airline can afford to fly travelers free. The airlines, as special cases, may carry troops in a national emergency or ferry emergency personnel as a goodwill gesture but they don’t hand out tickets free of cost.

There are some travelers who have found some loopholes in airline rules which they exploit to force airlines to give them a free passage. One is overbooked flights. These travelers avoid checking in till the flight is full. They then insist that they should be booked on the next available flight, and allowed to travel free. The flights, where it happens most, are the international flights that use multiple travel agents to book tickets.

Some travelers also demand free passage in case of missed connections. But once again it is on account of an operational problem that an airline awards a free passage. A passenger cannot, as a right, demand that the airlines sell free tickets.

Another way of getting a free passage is to use your flying miles. But once again these flying miles are not free; they are bonuses that you have earned over a period of time. Such tickets can at best be described as a benefit or a perk that is used by airlines to build customer loyalty.

Interestingly, luxury cruise services bundle free air ticket as part of their fares. This is a promotional tactic used by luxury passenger liners to promote their tour packages. The value of the ticket depends on the kind of cruise package that the passenger buys.

Similarly, some hotels and tour operators are ready to absorb the cost of air ticket if you buy a holiday package from them. But once again these cannot be called free tickets.

How to get the best discount airfare

There is a fare war out there with airlines, travel sites and travel agents offering discounted airfares. All that you need is patience and some search skills to locate the site that is offering the best discount airfare.

You can always start with the sites of airlines. Most airlines offer discounts if you buy tickets directly from their sites. Sometimes, these may be the best discounts, but not always. However, it makes sense to note down the discounted fares being offered by them before logging on to search sites.

These sites like Kayak.com or Sidestep.com search the databases of all travel sites, including airline sites that allow them, and display the best fares. They save you the trouble of visiting each site individually and searching for best fares.

However, some big travel sites like Travelocity.com have started closing their databases to these search engines because they don’t want to loose traffic or revenue to other sites. So, you need to visit the big travel sites like Expedia or Orbitz to learn their discounted airfares.

If you are not in a hurry, then you should spend a couple of days checking airfares at random hours; say 8 in the morning, 4 p.m. in the evening or 10 p.m. in the night. You may find a flight that is offering a discount of almost 50% on the rates it was quoting in the morning. However, you have to be lucky and persistent to be able to get such fares. They get sold out very quickly.

You can also try the flexible fare searches, if your dates are not final. This gives you the airfare on different possible dates. Locate the date when the fare is the lowest and make the booking.

Another way of getting discounted fares is to book two or three weeks in advance or to travel during the lean season. You will find that most airlines give you big discounts on such bookings.

There are several ways to get the best airfare

How do you get the best airfare? By talking to your travel agent? By visiting the airline office? Or by logging onto travel sites? All three can work. But the best chances are through the net.

The airlines have realized that the easiest way to communicate special fares is through the net. Almost every airline showcases its best fares on its site. Mostly, these airfares are put up either early when the bookings commence or when they are about to end, and the airline realizes that most of the flight is empty.

The airlines have no regular date or time when they put up their best fares. It’s just your luck. You may happen to be browsing at the time when you notice the cheap fares and make a booking.

You can also visit travel sites that buy tickets in bulk and sell them at a concession. Here too you can get a good deal, because these sites want to sell off as many tickets as possible – and are willing to part with substantial parts of their commission.

Ultimately, it is volumes that matter. Every site realizes that it stands to make more profits if it sells more tickets. The only way it can do so is by attracting more travellers to its site. So, you can expect tickets at cheaper rates; you can expect flexible ticketing where the prices vary from date to date; you can even also examine package rates where you end up paying less than the official fare.

Some net savvy travellers use the sites to hop across two or three flights to reach their destination. This enables them to use the cheapest airlines on different sectors. This is a good strategy especially when you are travelling abroad. Instead of flying non stop to your destination you can break your flight, and take a cheaper flight.