Flight tips

[Winchester24]

Not sure if this is the right place to post, but here goes. I almost never fly, like ever. The last time I flew was...I can't even remember. lol. I see people posting about getting deals on flights all the time, and I can't seem to find anything resembling a deal for our October trip. Any tips, tricks or sites I should be looking at? It's just me and my fiancé. Thanks!

 

[Disney Ron]

Not sure if this is the right place to post, but here goes. I almost never fly, like ever. The last time I flew was...I can't even remember. lol. I see people posting about getting deals on flights all the time, and I can't seem to find anything resembling a deal for our October trip. Any tips, tricks or sites I should be looking at? It's just me and my fiancé. Thanks!

You could try kayak.com.

 

[sam_gordon]

Not sure if this is the right place to post, but here goes. I almost never fly, like ever. The last time I flew was...I can't even remember. lol. I see people posting about getting deals on flights all the time, and I can't seem to find anything resembling a deal for our October trip. Any tips, tricks or sites I should be looking at? It's just me and my fiancé. Thanks!

Flight prices depend on too many variables to say "do this for a good price". The itinerary, the time of year, the time of day, the air line, the airport, and a ton of other factors go into it.

Start looking at flight prices at least once a week. You can use kayak, google, travelocity, hipmunk, ita, etc for comparison, BUT BOOK THROUGH THE AIRLINE. If Southwest is an option for you, you'll need to look at their website.

So, look at flight prices at least once a week. By the end of May, if you haven't booked, be looking at least twice a week, in June, I'd be looking almost daily. Once you find a price you're COMFORTABLE with (that doesn't mean "happy"), book, and don't look back. Sales can happen at any time and can be very short lived.

 

[AquamarineSteph]

Take a look at prices now. Determine how much you feel comfortable spending. If the price goes below that number, consider booking at that point. If you do that, do NOT look at prices later. They may still fluctuate.

If your travel plans are at all flexible, it sometimes makes a difference whether you're flying on a Monday or a Wednesday. It also can make a difference if you're flying out at 6 am or 2 pm. Search sites like Orbitz, Kayak, Travelocity, etc., allow you to play around with those variables and have an idea of what might be cheaper.

Your departure airport can also make a difference on the cost of your flight. If there are other airports nearby, it's often worth your time to plug those airports into your search engines and see what's the cheapest option.

And last, but not least - always book directly with the airline you wish to fly. In fact, as soon as you book your tickets, sign up for that airline's frequent flyer program. You may want to do this again in the future!

And somebody else will correct me if I'm wrong here, but I don't think Southwest flights show up on most of the search engines. The same may be true for Jet Blue. These are both discount airlines which may offer better fares for the dates/starting destination you wish to fly.

Hope this helps, and have a wonderful trip!

 

[kaytieeldr]

JetBlue flights absolutely do show up on search engines, buy no, Southwest's don't.

 

[monorailsilver]

Pick a different day.

April, we are locked in to set days due to school vacation.

Summer, not so much! One year I was looking at flights and it was cheaper to go from a Tuesday to a Thursday instead of the Wednesday to Wednesday like we had planned, my dh said book it...granted we ate that cost in our extra nights.

This coming August, my sister was supposed to come for 5 of our 11/12 days. I wanted to do a split BC/Poly and she just wanted to stay at the Poly so I had to plan the BC for before she got there with a few park days. But then she couldn’t come because her dd was going to Italy for a semester in August so when I looked at flights I checked a few days with in each of the weeks and found the cheapest days and flew those (bummed we will only be there for one full weekend vs two...but 11 days in all). Now she is coming, I think so we need to figure out what we are doing, or what she is doing since I am booked and can’t change things.

 

[bumbershoot]

If the price goes below that number, consider booking at that point. If you do that, do NOT look at prices later. They may still fluctuate.

Unless you’ve booked on southeest or alaska, as they give you credit for price drops without a fee.

 

[StageTek]

I see people posting about getting deals on flights all the time, and I can't seem to find anything resembling a deal for our October trip. Any tips, tricks or sites I should be looking at? It's just me and my fiancé.

It's rare to get a deal on specific dates. Airlines typically offer deals during very low travel periods on routes that don't have many passengers. No flexibility.

Sign up on the airlines website, get alerts from travel sites like Expedia, Kayak and Travelocity. But remember that the chances of a deal popping up on the days you want to travel from the airport you want are very slim. You need to be very flexible.

 

[ess]

Decide which airline you want to use and just keep checking prices all of the time. We booked ours at 2am on a Tues morning. JetBlue Newark to MCO $44 each way. Never saw them that cheap again.