Understand

There are a few things that I need to clear up.

• This is a multi-page tutorial.
• This discussion centers around international air fares from the United States, although the principles and processes could easily be applied to fares within the U.S.
• This discussion focuses on the cheapest class of tickets. It does not discuss how to find the lowest priced Business Class or First Class tickets.
• Further, the issue of air miles, a significant strategy in itself, is not considered here.
• Also, the majority of the discussion centers around departing from major international terminals. If you live in a place like I do, you’ll find you have to pay more for airfare or find transportation to a major terminal.
• There’s no such thing as the best price for a ticket on an airline flight. The concept of air miles makes that so. If you aren’t using air miles, then there are people who are on the flight you are taking who paid substantially less than you did for a seat. For the typical consumer, there’s only cheap and expensive. Which one you have will depend on how you see the price of the ticket that you bought.
• Finding airfare deals is work. If you have a problem with taking a few hours to find a great airfare deal then you should just pick up the phone, call your local travel agent and say “I want to go to...” and the problem will be solved. Just don’t be surprised that you paid twice as much as the person sitting behind you.

Where to Look

Some people think that all airfare is expensive. Others think that certain tickets they bought are cheap or at least a lot cheaper than many of the tickets for a particular flight. Airline ticket prices are relative. They also vary a lot for a given flight. When I start to look for good airfare prices I tend to go to certain Web sites. What Web sites I start with will depend on my goals. The image at left shows the Big 5 – the sites that produce fare information with the most visitors. Click on it to see who they are. If I am looking for airfare to a certain location I might start by looking at one site. Let’s say I’m looking for airfare to South America. If so, LAN is an excellent place to start. If I am looking for airfare to “anywhere” there are several places where I like to start so that I can benchmark prices or at least get an idea of what airfare is looking like. These are FareCompare, Kayak and Skyscanner. Note that only one of these are on the list of airfare websites with the the highest traffic counts for visitors. I just believe that these three are better places to start than going to the Big 5 and entering single dates of travel. Ultimately, you’ll wind up at the Big 5 to check for the best airfare once you find some target locations and possible travel dates.