The Secret Art of Flying

Travel is inherently expensive, and one of the most frustratingly expensive necessities of travel is the flight itself. Whether you’re going around the world or jet-setting around the same continent, air travel takes a chunk of money that often ends up being up to a fifth of an entire budget. The most effective ways of getting around this are marrying an airline pilot, owning your own private jet, and becoming so famous that people pay you to fly to places. For the rest of us humans, there are still cards to play that will save you money and make you breathe easier. Where would you go if you had a free one-way flight inside the country you’re traveling to? Imagine what you could do with an extra thousand dollars added onto your budget. Next time you book travel to another country, remember some of these tips, and save your money for the tacky touristy knick-knacks you know you’re going to end up buying. After all, if you don’t work to save your money, who’s going to – the airlines? Take a minute to yourself to stop laughing, and read on.

1.       Consider NOT flying. Flying tends to be one of the more expensive forms of travel, even at its cheapest. If you’re going over land, explore train options. Trains are often cheaper than flights, but the cost trade-off comes at the price of your time, so you have to be alright with spending a whole lot of it by yourself. Another benefit of traveling by train is getting to see the country you’re traveling through, usually covered in clouds via plane, and meeting new people. People traveling on planes tend to become catatonic for the few hours they’re in the air. You might get into a good conversation with the people next to you, but convexly, many people don’t know how to turn conversation on and off when they’re in close proximity, and many will just continue to talk to you for the entire 5 hour flight – which can be either a good or a bad thing, depending on how interesting they are. Spend a lot of time on a train, however, and everyone eventually ends up wandering around the cars and making small talk with fellow trainees, if you will. If you’re interested in making new friends, while traveling, train travel can be an absolute godsend. If you’ve got enough friends and don’t want to make any more, convince some of your current friends to take a road trip with you. Get inventive – depending on the country, you could probably finagle a junker dirtbike for anywhere between $500 and $1000, thus eliminating the need for any in-country travel, and opening the door to the possibility of breakdown-related adventures. There are even water-borne methods of travel, if you’re enterprising and intrepid – if you already have sailing or nautical skills, working on a ship traveling to the location you’re interested in is a distinct possibility. How does getting paid for traveling to your vacation spot sound? Sounds like a few extra pina coladas on the beach to me.

2.       Forget booking services – or manipulate them. Alright, so they haven’t invented ocean trains yet, and your friends haven’t called you “Skipper” since that one time you got too drunk and started dancing down the street singing The Sound of Music, so sailing’s out too. You’re dedicated to air travel. What’s your first step? Kayak? Expedia? Orbitz, Travelocity, Hotwire? None of the above. The flight prices quoted to you rarely reflect the very cheapest flight you’ll be able to find if you do your own footwork. If you’re thinking about booking hotels, rental cars, and flights through the same company, think about using one of these booking services for simple ease of organization and then scour their user policies for discounts. But if you’re simply looking at flight prices, comparing price quotes from each individual airline will tend to turn up a cheaper flight than you will find using a service. Don’t know what airlines fly out of what countries? Here’s where the booking companies come in. Plug in your flight itinerary, and it will pop up with a list of companies with bids for your ticket. Write down the list of every company it comes up with, then go to each company’s individual site and search your itinerary to see if they’re holding out with a better sale price than they’re giving to Expedia. You’ll often come up with airlines you didn’t even think of. Who knew that China Southern Airlines would be the cheapest company to fly to Melbourne from the States?

3.       Segment your flights. So you want to book your flight to Paris, but you live in Middlefart, Kansas? Don’t even think of booking your Paris flight straight from your local airport. First of all, I’m not even sure that there is a local airport in Kansas, and second of all, you’re going to get absolutely hoisted on fares. At this point, you’ve decided which international airline is going to give you the best fare for your round-trip travel. But regardless of who you go with, the cheapest international flight is not necessarily going to be the cheapest airline to take a domestic flight out of. If you’re booking overseas with Delta, and you tell them you’re leaving from Colorado, they’re going to include a leg from Colorado to an international hub, and they’re going to book through Delta flights – which may not be the cheapest flight you could find out of Colorado. All international flights will leave out of big hubs on the seaboards – LAX, Atlanta, Boston, and New York, as an American example. Since you’re going to have to get there anyway, when you schedule your oversea flight, schedule it out of the hub, not out of your hometown. So, if you’re traveling from aforementioned Middlefart, search to see which would be the cheapest city to fly out of between the eastern seaboard hubs, and book that ticket. Then, use your Holmesian tactics that you learned in step 2 to find which airline is going to get you to from Middlefart to Reagan for the cheapest. Give a few hours cushion in between arrival and departure times to account for delays and ensure you get to the gate on time, because odds are if you’re flying on different airlines you’re going to have to change terminals. Similarly, fly into an international hub in another country, and then explore domestic flights online to see what would be the cheapest flight to your final destination.

4.       Fly roundtrip. No matter where you’re going, the savings on a roundtrip ticket are going to be so high that you’ll be disgusted you even thought about booking one-way in the first place. If you’re not planning out your travels that explicitly, a one-way ticket may seem like a more flexible option – if you don’t know when you’re leaving, or where you’re flying out of, it may seem to make more sense to just get a one-way and then purchase your second ticket when your plans finalize. Trust me on this one (or do the smarter thing and look it up yourself) – a round-trip ticket will save you hundreds in the long run. As a comparison – a one-way ticket from LAX to Melbourne is $1,300. A roundtrip ticket featuring the same cities, is $1,500. Why the price difference? Because airlines are run by the devil, that’s why. In fact, in many cases, it may be far cheaper to purchase a round-trip ticket, then throw away the return ticket, if you’ve no intention of using it. There are a few caveats to this, as well as a few loopholes. If you’re unsure of where or when you’re flying back home, and hesitate to lock yourself into a schedule and a point of departure, no fear – if you want to switch flights, airlines will usually charge a change fee (around $200) and then make you pay the difference in the costs of flight for where you are flying from. Sometimes they will force you to pay the difference between your original return leg and a new one-way fee, but some airlines will simply make you pay the difference between your original half-roundtrip and the new half-roundtrip. It is very well worth calling the airline and asking, and finding an airline that will offer you a change fare based on return-roundtrip pricing. 

This tactic can also be used to beat airline scheduling, which usually only prospects out ten or eleven months into the future. If you are being a responsible traveler and buying your ticket three months in advance, booking in October and leaving in February, then the airlines will not tend to offer flights returning in any months later than next August. If you were planning to leave sometime in December, it seems your dreams of a roundtrip ticket are scuttled, but don’t worry, you’re not stranded having to buy a one-way. Buy your roundtrip and schedule a return flight as late as you can. Then, when the airline’s schedule opens up to next December, pay the $200 change fee and price difference and push your return flight to December. It may seem expensive, but using the LAX-Melbourne example above – two one-ways will cost you $2,600, while the cost of a round-trip even after the change fee will be $1,700 – almost a thousand dollars in savings. Throw some scribble math in for the difference in costs, and you’re looking at $800 in pocket.

5.       Know your airlines. You’re about to book a $1,000+ ticket and fly over an ocean – don’t let some tween in an ascot tell you that you can’t take your third bag. Know which ones are dependable, which ones offer good food, which ones will let you check a bag for free. Don’t be afraid to call and ask, and do your research. Finding an airline that has a cheap flight offer but makes you pay for each bag you check can inflate the cost to higher than you meant to spend. Some airlines have particular offers that will absolutely vindicate your travel budget. Airtran offers a standby ticket that you can purchase if you are between the ages of 18 and 22, a one-way $70 segment with two carry-on bags included. Jetstar has a sales hour where the price of all flights will plummet. Qantas will let you book a stopover in New Zealand for free, for as long as you want. Not every airline has a kicking deal like this, but knowing which ones do will end up saving you armored truckloads of money as you book connecting travel.

6.       Two words – reward miles. Yes, this is absolutely worth getting an entire new credit card for. Many airline sponsored credit cards will offer introductory deals and amazing miles-for-dollars rewards. The Delta American Express card offers 30,000 free miles if you spend over $500 in the first three months – which you obviously will – and the card is so easy to get, a homeless person could get one via internet at the public library. There is a yearly fee, but the first year is waived, and by the time it rolls around you should have already gotten your money’s worth for it. Use your new credit card to purchase your international flight and zam, you’re looking at enough miles for a free one-way – 10,000 mile equals $100 off of a flight booking. Shop smart, and you might be looking at TWO free one-ways. You’re going to be spending money all vacation – pay on the card, and let it pay for your next vacation flight.

Credit cards aren’t the only way to earn reward miles. Airlines themselves often offer frequent flyer miles for customer loyalty. Since you’re already looking at taking a long and expensive flight, find out if your airline has a frequent flyers program, and sign up to make sure you get points from your travel. Often these points will seriously offset the costs of your next flight, if they don’t completely alleviate them. Sometimes the frequent flyer points will count flights from a sister company, such as Jetstar and Qantas, so you have a huge selection of flight times, prices, and airport locations.

Shop smart, do your research, and play your cards right, and you could find yourself not only paying a fare hundreds of dollars cheaper than you would have, but also cashing in free connecting flights, and stacking up points for rewards the next time you travel. This next round of beers is on me, guys – don’t worry, now I’ve got the money to spare.