Five myths about low airfares
Beating the airlines at their complex pricing game is often the first step of planning any trip. Yet despite the proliferation of online travel agencies and the promise of transparent costs, unearthing a low fare is still a serious challenge. So let's dispel five myths about searching for bargain airfares and offer some strategies to help you discover the best price the next time you fly.
1. You need to know the secret day and time when each airline drops its prices during the week.
Put away your crystal ball, industry observers say.
"Although many domestic airlines have advertised sales on Tuesdays, this is a dangerous myth that costs consumers money," says George Hobica, president of Airfarewatchdog.com. "Internationally-based airlines can have flash sales any day of the week, and there are unadvertised price drops throughout the week, even on weekends. A lower fare can pop up at any moment of the week."
Giorgos Zacharia, chief technology officer at Kayak, an online travel agency, essentially agrees.
"There are times of day and day of week differences in pricing, according to our data," he says. "However, the specific days and times vary, and the average savings are only between $5 to $15. "
A better strategy, and one that might result in more significant savings, is to sign up for price alerts, Zacharia says. Both Kayak.com and Airfarewatchdog.com offer such alerts.
2. The best way to uncover low airfares is to shop on an airline's own website, not on the website of an online travel agency.
"That's not always true," says Hobica. "It might be cheaper, or more convenient schedule-wise, to fly out on one airline and return on another. Only an online travel agency will tell you that."
Not surprisingly, Zacharia of online booking agency Kayak agrees. But he stresses that the consumer needs to do their research first and then look to an online travel agency for separate booking combinations.
"Arming travelers with information from both airlines and OTAs, including one-way and round-trip fares," says Zacharia, is what a meta-search site like Kayak is designed for. "If you only shop an airline's website, you may miss deals, as some online agencies negotiate agency-specific fares," he says.
All it takes is to play around with fares for a few minutes on an online travel agency site such as Expedia, Orbitz or Kayak to realize that some itineraries can be significantly cheaper by combining fares and routes from different airlines. On Kayak, look for Hacker Fares, which pair flights from different airlines that, if booked separately, can bring your total trip cost down.
Hobica advises yet another strategy, which is to shop for low airfares by looking for codeshare airfares. For example, if you're planning a trip from the U.S. to Italy, he suggests looking at the websites of both Alitalia as well as Delta, which has a codeshare with Alitalia.
"These seats are often cheaper on the 'selling' airline vs. the airline actually doing the flying," he points out. "You might see Delta selling New York to Milan for $800 while Alitalia is selling seats for $1,000 on the very same flight and travel dates. You'd never know the difference unless you went to Alitalia and Delta's websites separately."
3. Flying is expensive, and finding a low fare is really just a matter of luck.
"That's false," says Zacharia. "Yes, it can be expensive to fly to destinations serviced by only a few airlines, or especially a single airline. But where there is healthy competition, prices are also competitive. Airlines still have trouble filling all their planes completely, so they will offer special fares to help ensure the flight reaches capacity."
Hobica acknowledges that competition between the airlines remains healthy and ongoing.
"Surprisingly, we still see fare wars between the remaining four large U.S. airlines, on select routes," he says.
The strategy for smart fliers is to sign up for emailed airfare alerts and to jump on deals when you see them. You may also need to be creative about routing yourself.
"It's really the smaller airports that don't get the fare love," Hobica observes, "so you might have to fly to a larger hub airport to benefit from a low fare and then fly on from there."
4. Package deals are just trying to entice you into booking a hotel at the same time.
While acknowledging that sometimes the savings can be small, as little as $40 per person, Hobica says that such deals still exist and that on occasion, the savings can be quite large. "Recently, I saw San Francisco to Dublin, airfare alone, on British Airways for October travel at $1,200," he says. "But during that same travel and booking period, British Airways had a package with airfare and five nights at a hotel in Dublin for $770 per person. So sometimes the savings can be huge."
As a rule of thumb, both Zacharia and Hobica encourage consumers to do some research and at least look at packages before booking because, as Zacharia says, "package providers typically bundle package-only discount rates, which can be substantially cheaper. A combination with a low cost carrier, especially in Europe, can provide substantial savings."
5. Once you take the leap to book and pay, that's it -- even if the fare drops later on.
The fact is that some airlines are more forgiving than others when it comes to fare dips.
"Alaska and Southwest still offer fare-drop refunds in the form of a travel credit," Hobica says. "However, other airlines deduct $200 on a domestic fare and more on an international one."
Zacharia says that if you have booked a flight and later learned the price has dropped, check your agreement, because you may have flexibility to re-book at the lower price.
"It's often permissible to change domestic flight bookings that are more than seven days out, with little or no fee at all," he says, "if it's done within 24 hours of booking."