Cheap Airfare Guide

[DealsLife]

How to find the cheapest airfare:

You have two different options when booking airfare. For some airlines, you might get a better price directly from their website/search tool; an example of this being Southwest. However, it's often best to use a website that searches many different airlines for fare and flight options. The advantage of the fare search websites is that they will report the fares from several airlines on the same page thereby saving you the effort of having to visit multiple airline websites, doing a search on each, and individually noting the results in order to compare them later. This is even more important for long/international trips because as the length increases, the number of possible combinations rises exponentially.

Fare aggregating search tools:

ITA Software Beta is one of the best places to search for fares. This is not a booking service. It's the software engine that major airlines use to build their booking services. You'll frequently find fare combinations that no airline or travel agent would be able to find for you. It gives you the specific flight codes to ask for. The only drawback is that you may have to pay an agent or phone booking fee in order to get somebody to book the low fares it found.

Orbitz searches nearby airports and for US/Canada flights, it can also search for the next/previous day.

Expedia another standard search and aggregation website.

Travelocity another standard search and aggregation website.

Airfarewatchdog helps you find unadvertised low fares. Airlines lower airfares every day without advertising them. Their team of fare experts tells you about these "hidden" fare reductions and alert you to $0 "blooper" fares and other air fare bargains that you might otherwise miss. And they provide helpful info about finding low air fares on the Web.

American Airlines website probably has more sophisticated search tools than any of the other better known search website. Remember to select the option that says "All Carriers" to get results from other airlines. You can get itineraries that include flights from other airlines and book them here and earn miles for them too. For the international flights that I searched for, the results returned were less expensive, had fewer stops and more options that the other aggregators. You can search for flexible dates and get results in a matrix form that makes them easy to compare.

FareCompare - For new fares several hours before the main sites (Expedia, Orbitz, and the like) get them and before anyone can buy them. Also email alerts. Has historical price data every day for the previous two years , showing high/average/low prices, so you really know if a certain fare is a "good deal."

Airport parking:

LongTermParking - Coupons for airport parking

AirportParkingReservations - airport parking reservations (may charge a service fee!)

Students and youths (under 26):

STA Travel. You have to buy a $22 discount card but their fares can still be very good sometimes. If you don't see anything good online, call them. Also call/e-mail local branches - you'll get a different answer each time. Sooner or later you'll find one you like.

NOTE: We keep this information as current as possible, but if you have anything to add or see an error, please post it in a reply.