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Cheap Airfares

Don't fly!   Flying causes climate change. (more...)

by Michael Bluejay
Award-winning writer

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Cheapest airfare for international flights

Be a courier and save

How does $169 one-way to Europe sound? You can get ridiculously cheap airfares like this when you agree to carry a package as a courier. In fact, couriers sometimes fly for free. This requires a flexible travel schedule, but if that's you then you can score an incredible deal this way. Courier flights are usually available only for international travel.

For exotic locations, don't count on the Internet

Search engines like Kayak are great for finding flights within the U.S. but sometimes they're not so good for flights that start or end in places like Asia, India, or Africa. That's because not all foreign airlines make their fares available to the search engines, and even those which do sometimes don't list their best fares. International engines like Momondo and Mobissimo sometimes do better, but even they sometimes miss fares offered by certain airlines.

So what do you do? First off, try a travel agent. If you've been used to buying U.S. fares, you might have gotten in the mindset that travel agents usually can't do better than what you can find on the net. Well, that changes as soon as you're talking international fares. Case in point: Once the best fare I could get for Japan to India (Osaka to Delhi) from Kayak, Orbitz, etc. was $1641. I walked across the street to a travel agent in Osaka and got a price of $1108 -- a whopping $538 savings. (And yes, the budget price included taxes and all applicable fees.)

I had a similar experience in India, trying to get a flight to Hong Kong. I spent hours on the net and I think the best I could come up with was around $1200. I mentioned my problem to the hotel staff, and they said they were sure they could arrange a ticket for me. I asked them to go ahead, and sure enough, they did, for around $566 -- less than half price! (I tipped appropriately.) The point is, you just can't expect all international flights to show up in the search engines.

If you go this route you need to make sure that you're not being scammed by buying a fake ticket, and that's especially true in India. But as long as you work with staff at a hotel you should be okay, because if they scammed you then you could tell the police exactly who they were, so they're not likely to do so. Just don't buy from someone who doesn't have a permanent business location.

Since I've mentioned some international flights I took while the top of the page recommends that you don't fly because flying causes climate change, I should point out that after this year I don't plan to take any more international flights. I plan to go by cargo ship for any more international travel, and I bought carbon offsets for the travel I already took, and I make sure the rest of my lifestyle has a small footprint. (I don't drive a car, don't eat meat, and use about 99 kWh of electricity each month.)

Okay, here's the last tip on travel to or from exotic locations: Find the airlines that serve the country you're flying to or from. For example, a Google search turned up this list of airlines flying to India (sorted by which countries/areas they fly from). You can then check the airlines' websites or call them to get fares, which will often be substantially cheaper than what you can find in the search engines.

Finally, if you're planning an around-the-world trip full of one-ways rather than roundtrip/return flights, remember that for some inexplicable reason, round-trip tickets often cost less than one-way tickets. So make sure you check the round-trip fare as well, since it might be cheaper.

 
U.S. to Bermuda, Cancun, etc.

USA3000 offers service between select U.S. cities and Bermuda, Cancun, La Romana, Puerto Plata, and Punta Cana. In Sept. 2004 we checked and found a roundtrip fare between Baltimore and Bermuda for $160 (!), while the best Orbitz could find was closer to $400.

Other international sites

Other sites we found which have good international fares are:
  • U.S. to/from Canada: Air Canada
  • Canada to everywhere: Sears Travel
  • Australia to Australia: Fare Hunter
  • Other international, especially Europe: Mobissimo & Momondo.
    • Momondo's flexible dates feature is awesome. It gives you a GRAPH showing the price for every single day in any month you choose. Sweet! Unfortunately, this feature doesn't always work, though.

Tip for flying into Europe

Kelly Fine writes: "We found that it was much cheaper to fly to London on one airline and fly from London to the Continent on another airline. This seemed to be true no matter what city in Europe we wanted to go to. And it was impossible to find a cheap flight from anywhere to Bratislava, so we found a flight to Vienna, which is only a little over an hour by bus from Bratislava. Flying into central and eastern Europe is much more expensive than flying to western Europe."  

Thanks for visiting, and I hope you liked the site. I'll leave you with a couple of hand-picked ads.

Find which travel days are cheapest
If your travel dates are flexible, just enter the cities you're flying between and let Travelocity find which days are cheapest to fly. Being flexible with your travel dates is our #1 tip for getting the cheapest airfare.
Travelocity.com

If you liked my guide to Cheap Airfare, you might like some of my other sites:

 

Summarized Tips for getting the cheapest airfare

Be flexible with your travel dates (click "flexible dates" at Travelocity, and see our flexible dates tips).

Book at least 2-3 weeks in advance, 30 days for intl. flights.

Fly mid-week if you can.

Check fares at nearby airports (e.g., Newark, NJ instead of NYC). Most search engines have a checkbox to do this automatically.

Check roundtrip fares even if you're traveling one-way. Round-trips are often cheaper, for some strange reason.

Travel on Thanksgiving Day itself instead of the day before Thanksgiving.

After Thanksgiving, return on Friday, Saturday or Monday instead of Sunday.

Fly on Christmas Day itself instead of the days before Christmas.

If you're traveling to more than one city, use the engine's special Multi-City search.

Use the best website for your particular situation. See our complete tips.

 

how to find

Cheap Airfares

Don't fly!   Flying causes climate change. (more...)

by Michael Bluejay
Award-winning writer

Contact me

©2001-09 Michael Bluejay Inc.