gracesteban

I use sidestep. I normally get the best deal there. I've never tried using Kayak. I checked the fares on both aggregators and they give you pretty much the same best deal. I just seem to like the interface of kayak now :)

apatel1416

I check many websites for domestic flights including many mentioned above such as: cheapoair, orbitz, travelocity, cheaptickets, southwest, etc. I found that hotwire is very cheap most of the time. I found a roundtrip ticket for chicago for only $199 and a oneway for $100. They already include taxes while other websites offered from 231-over 300.
Sometimes you just have to keep looking at many websites.

vbarrere

Some feedback for you all. I used just about every site on here. kayak, orbitz, sidestep, cheaptickets, tictrip, I used the power of ITA, a ton of other sites and what-nots. but I found the cheapest roundtrip ticket at travelocity.

gotalkmoney

There are a few websites out there that offer great last minute deals like travelocity.com, etc. If you do travel frequently, I would highly suggest airline credit cards
A lot of the times when you sign up, you're able to get a free ticket and receive bonus points on future purchases.

argon

For Australian air travel, I like using FareFetched.com.au. They provide a similar service to Kayak and Farecast and let you compare airfares and flights between Virgin Blue, Jetstar, Tiger and Qantas.
You can also compare airfares over a range of dates and get graphs of airfare price histories... pretty useful for finding a cheap flight.
[FareFetched.com.au]

seinfieldfan

www.srstravelservices.com
This site really has competitive pricing. I used them for my last 2 trips. I got better deals than the other websites I tried, including the airlines (united.com)

MarieLaVoe

when i was in need for a plane ticket pronto, without going bankrupt doing so, (oooh that rymes), out of pure luck googling, i came across cheapoair.com. Now, again i am in search of airfare that won't break my bank. wish me luck. And good luck and winful searching for you all.

pfft

I've really come to like [www.farecast.com]

They give predictions on whether the fares are likely to increase or decrease, and if they predict a decrease, I believe you can lock in the current price (in case they're wrong) for $10 or so.

Especially good to use their grid views if you've got some flexibility. They just saved me almost $1000 on a flight to London by seeing how much the prices changed from one day to the next.

TheZenArcher

I've had good results with Orbitz, Kayak and CheapTickets for a long time -- though ATA Airlines out of Chicago Midway consistently has the best direct prices, if you live there -- but recently have had even better pricing from [TravelHero.com] -- sometimes by as much as $35.

bij

If you're a student under 26, buy an ISIC card ($25), and book through ISA Travel, it saved me $200+ on one way international air ticket, but I could have saved about $300, instead I got the one-way flight.

HMTMKM

KNOWLEDGE

All I was looking for tonight when I came across somthing I needed an answere to. My question came in the form of one of those e-mails you do not open. In this case all it said was my name and American Airlines has gone bulk.

I realized just how lucky I was, even after a day of finding out (1) I had M S, (2)I have an awful soon to be ex. but highly decorated Marine after 25 yrs in, went on to a large Broker, took off with my 2 million I made before 34th birthday (3)my father ranting about our president, and every ethic type on our earth. And that's just the tip!

Then I came across your site. I was very impressed, all I was going to do was stick it under favorites. I no longer assume which is why I wanted to post. It was the e-mail from a milatary spouse.

If I may answere her, and some of this applies to civilians.

There are 5 major airlines who have always given discounts to milatary, 3 who give to retired.

If you fly always join the milage program. Over 95% of all hotels give points that transfer both ways.

Almost every major market drugstore and resturants ( if you have the KNOWLEDGE ) give award points use to fly or lodge, or never buy another gift in your life.

I have to fly to another hospital. I have so many points I will not pay for flight, hotels or meals.

I never forward site's. This site went out to hundreds tonight.

It took my mind off the M S losing my vision the cancer the divorce my father the bigot, who truly believes we as humans evolved.

His right. No one can take it. Only KNOWLEDGE can change it, or prove him correct. Only Knowledge will find all cures. I can only pray it will lead us all to no longer hate, divorce, discriminate, to heal our planet, the list is endless.

I have spent my life helping others, teaching, loving, getting answeres, solving horrible crimes, making humane decisions. Again, all starting out not knowing, until I was able and willing to keep looking for the answere.

I really want to thank-you all for your site.

Please excuse my grammer, and spelling mistakes. The brain does have the ability to re-lean. This I know from learning to read and write again. To walk again, through MEAN trainers. LOL. I spent 2 more years in school after college to know all about computors. It is slow but it is coming back

Maybe not as quick as I would like, but coming.

Next is going back to work 80 hour weeks to put food on my table and the 2 million back in bank.

Only time will tell.

I only need one more answere, how do I kill this pity party?

I know you cannot print all this, may I ask though that somone there advises our Milatay, and the poor and ill about all the bennies of airline and hotel clubs. Ill can start with Angel Flight.

No Discrimination! Regardless of Race, Sex, Religion, Age,

KNOWLEDGE: A Christians second love by far an increadable gift.

Every American's right.

Who decided computor users were geeks?

davidlevart

Hi, I went to TicTrip to check out that system. I was really amazed at the speed and the prices. I spent less than 5 minutes and seemed to search 500 airfare websites including Travelocity, Expedia, Orbitz, SideStep, Kayak, and more. It was really cool. My kids played with that site all night long, they have games, music, and tons of other stuff there. I think TicTrip is a really cool website to check out.

Cheers, David.

ajday0430

Hi,

My husband is a Marine who just got back from Iraq and I figured I could find an airline that gives military discounts, but I'm not finding any luck. I've found some better deals from some of the sites all of have listed about, but didn't know if anyone knew something that we didn't know... I think it's crap that our military still have to pay full price to go home to see their family. We live 2000 miles away from home so it's not very cheap to fly.

Hope you all can help...Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

Thanks,

Abby

johnlerner

Hi,

I found a place that combines most all of these sites, plus their own for Cheap Airline Tickets. The place is TicTrip Travel at

http://www.tictrip.com/airfares

They take the top 10 Airline Ticket places and combine their own Consolidator Tickets, and other Web Fares into one easy to use system.

I saw a press release on it and went to check it out. I was amazed, I do not need to go to 50 places to check flight prices anymore.

After I got done, I went to their main website and found movies, games, music, and all sorts of cool stuff. Give it a try and let us know if you think any other place can beat their prices. Thanks, John.

moucon

Baloney. Most domestic airlines have cut their first-class cabins to the bone. USair 757s on long-haul flights now have two or three rows of 4, so 8 or 12 seats max on a +/- 200 seat plane. It makes zero difference how you're dressed, how polite you are, or anything else if you don't have either the frequent flier status or the ticket class necessary. Seats are assigned in this order

- Full fare purchase

- Mileage upgrades (purchased or freq. flier miles)

- Bumps and other concessions from prior flights

- Elite Status -- Platinum.. Gold... Silver etc. in that order

- Then, and only then... if none of the above have filled the first-class seats, you might be able to score something, but don't count on it.

I am Gold on two airlines and silver on another (I fly over 150,000 miles/yr) and usually, but not always get upgraded. When I dont - it's because there is a platinum ahead of me on the list, or the flight was sold out first-class.

Paolo

My post on discount airfare, with extensive links.

http://ablogsoup.blogspot.com/2006/08/misc-airfare-done-ch...

wintersweet

- I realize this is an old post, but since it was linked to again, I want to recommend http://www.biddingfortravel.com/ --it's about the only thing that makes Priceline useful (especially for hotels).

- If you haven't tried [kayak.com] yet, you really should.

- If you're heading to another country, check the ads during local TV shows in that language (if any) and in newspapers/magazines written in that language.

- I try to keep a collection of these kinds of links here:

http://www.sharedwing.net/travel.html

onesix18

Second here for Sidestep.com

wenno

I'm with MH on using itasoftware.com. Scientists at MIT have developed a search engine for flights giving you the and while you can't purchase from the site, you can find the best deal/routing and then go directly to the airline's site. It's also worth noting that some other sites (your expedias and travelocitys and the like...) are biased towards certian airlines.

While [itasoftware.com] seems to include US low-cost carriers, it excludes most foreign ones. So if you're looking for international flights, another couple of great sites are [lowcostairlines.com] for foreign low-cost bookings, and [whichbudget.com] to find out which European low-cost carrier flies between your departure and arrival point.

Old Hag

Two great ways:

1. When traveling internationally, look for an agency -- yup, a real live agency -- in a neighborhood with a high percentage of citizens from the country you're traveling to (Williamsburg for Poland, for example). Those agencies buy out huge chunks of a flight and you can get cheaper fares -- I once went to the Czech Republic for $700 when everyone else was paying about $1200, and I have heard equally good things about flights to China, etc.

2. Check the American Express site. I have absolutely no idea why, but their fares are almost ALWAYS the cheapest I can find after scouring all the other places listed above. You don't need a card to buy them from AMEX, either--it's just that the site is handy.

thegirl

my super-travelling executive mega-platinum flyer dad taught me to shop for plane tickets early Wednesday mornings, when the airlines regularly release new tickets/fares. even though they reprice constantly, Wed am is some sort of special refresh of prices.

i regularly use [kayak.com] and mobissimo.com, but be sure to check some of the cheap airline sites separately (Southwest, JetBlue, etc.)

for flights internationally or between major US cities, check non-US airlines (Air France, Air New Zealand, Lufthansa, etc.) whose quality may be better for the same price as a US flight.

dep

It's definitely worth mentioning travelocity here. You can sign up for their "farewatcher" program and set criteria on certain flights. Also, from their home page, you can set up an RSS feed to watch certain destinations for cheap tickets. It's stellar.

SteveM

Aside from the online sites (I haven't seen onetravel.com mentioned yet, so there it is, check out their Travel Advisor's corner for more tips) there are the more traditional means of finding cheap flights.

1) Check prices from your three nearest airports. Flights to or from Baltimore/Washington can be dirt cheap relative to Dulles or Reagan. So try this on both destination and home port. Afew of the search engines are starting to do this.

2)Overshoot. Especially if your destination is a hub city (Atlanta, Chicago, New York). Look for cheap flights to minor destinations ($99 to Duluth!) on airlines that use your target city as a hub. Don't check any bags.

3)Along the mid-atlantic corridor, take the train. Despite its fiscal woes, Amtrak is often a luxurious (relatively) cost-effective alternative to cattle-car flights and has often proven to be faster when congestion or weather cause air traffic delays. Amtrak is trying hard to degrade its service to the same level as the airlines, but it still hasn't sunk that low. Oh, and since you end up in a downtown station, you save cabfare from the airport.

4)Make friends with an airline employee. Its the only way to fly on a discounted "standby" fare any more. I think its called a 'buddy fare' and is strictly on a space available basis.

5)Consider driving or (for a diffent kind of adventure) take the bus. Really, what's your hurry?

No other industry (well maybe the music publishing industry) goes so far out of its way to abuse, mistreat, mislead and constantly lower standards of customer satisfaction at constantly increasing prices. But don't get me started.

MH

The power of ITA compels you:

http://matrix.itasoftware.com/cvg/dispatch/

Check it out. It's quite the tool for acquiring those 'cheap ass' tickets. But be forewarned, you won't be flying first class. And you need to follow up the purchases at www.seatguru.com - Airline seat configurations almost never match up across the board.

Mij Snave

There are many specialty travel agencies that have access to special fares for specific travel purposes, especially when traveling internationally. These include student travel, humanitarian aid travel, mission travel, group travel, and others. MTSTravel.com, for instance, specializes in international travel for not-for-profit organizations, humanitarian aid travel and missions travel.

jendaviswilson

I just went through the cheap-ticket-buying experience yesterday. Some things I learned:

1. Dittos to the first comment: Find the flights you want on Orbitz/Travelocity/etc and then search for those exact flights on the airline's own page. American Airlines has a low price guarantee, for example. I found the airlines themselves to have slightly cheaper prices.

2. Believe it or not, sometimes you can get cheaper flights by buying two one-ways separately, one of them from Southwest or JetBlue. (Especially true for multi-city flights.)

3. Flexibility with multiple airports helps. My cheapest fare for a multi-city flight arrives and departs from different airports in all three cities. I'll just have to keep my travel documents with me to remember which is which!

Antonio

I LOVE Kayak's interface. And even though they aren't a reseller of tickets, they usually point me to the cheapest. I have used them many times and will continue to use them.

I used to use sidestep, but I like Kayak's interface more. To each their own, I guess.

IFYOUCANREADTHIS

Kayak.com. Most of the time, they point me to the lowest fare on travelocity.com.

JpMaxMan

Seconding Zen Bliss's point - air fare prices do fluctuate, so keeping an eye on the price is important. But that also takes time, which is why I think TripStalker is great. It's a downloadable application (Windows only) that continuously searches for the best price on airfares (and hotels & cars rentals). You can be notified via email or desktop popup when a price drop occurs; the service is particularly great for those obligation trips (Weddings, reunions, etc.) because you know you have to go, and you know when you have to go and you know you want to save money getting there!

keegelddim

I found Kayak through bookingbuddy.com. It seems a bit clunky, but you can search all of the above sites and more without haveing to put in your travel details over and over again.

jeffk

While I like Yahoo travel and Orbitz a lot, it's important to know they don't show all airlines.

JetBlue and Southwest for example, you have to go to their web sites separately.

Emily D

Both Kayak and Sidestep (which can be used with firefox) are great. They are not resellers themselves but direct you towards the cheapest fare. The interface on [Kayak.com] is especially nice-- you can select which airports, flight time, and it shows you how the price fluctuates to help you better deduce which concessions are worth it. I always check a few sites before purchasing and found that I can assure myself a good price by purchasing about 4 weeks in advance of my flight. If you purhcase too early, fares are often much higher.

Zen Bliss

I have used [cheaptickets.com] as well. CheapTickets or any other similar source is a good place to look because they buy tickets in bulk for resale. When you buy tickets from a source like this, be aware of every little detail. For instance if you purposely bring only carry-on luggage, make sure that your discounted tickets have not landed you on a connecting commuter flight that defeats the purpose of a carry-on by requiring they go below deck (because of the small jet size).

Airline ticket prices fluctuate constantly based on supply and demand. You get the feeling it's like the stock market. Buy far ahead of time and during periods when others are not likely to be competing for seats. Seats on a particular flight will drop in price due to poor sales, then quickly rise when the buying starts again. You're particularly subject to these fluctuations when you buy direct from the airline.

There is an IE add-on called SideStep that searches multiple airline and travel databases simultaneously. I have not used it personally so I am not aware of its reputation, nor if it comes with malware.

Paradise

at this point i usually just go through a hijacker training course ... it turns out its cheaper and i get to pick my flight.

darklighter

I check Travelocity and [CheapTickets.com] to find a flight, but then I always check the airline's website. Sometimes the discount sites aren't cheaper than going to the airline direct.