Miel is the travel guru, especially when it comes to finding good rates. She booked her first ticket online back in 1998, wondering if her money would disappear into the pockets of an online travel agent. Amazing she made it to Fiji on the ticket, and the unexpectedly long thirty hour return and lost luggage were merely part of the joys of travel!
However, since then she’s become a bit of an expert at getting good online tickets.
Here’s how to do it:
1) Look on www.expedia.com and www.travelocity.com first. Check to see what carriers have the least expensive flights.
2) Then go right to the airlines websites and check the prices there. If you go for the same itinerary you normally end up with the same ticket but $5 cheaper for no booking fee, so you’ve at least saved that much.
3) Then if you have any flexibility, check on different days or times. This often is where you get the best pricing. They say that Tues/Wed are the cheapest flights, because they are the least desirable for most travelers. If you are willing to deal with longer time in transit this also saves money. On James’ last flight to Oregon we booked it two days before, and since he was willing to do two stopovers we got it for around $200.
4) If you are patient enough and there aren’t already low tickets showing up, continue checking various options and airlines. This often pays off. When Miel flew to Italy last summer she was finding such lousy flights that she started trying any airline she knew flew to Europe. She ended up on American, which wasn’t showing up on any of the travel sites, and got the ticket for around $400.
5) If you are planning to get a car, Miel would highly recommend priceline. Start at $12 a day, you likely won’t get it, but it’s worth trying. They’ll tell you to go up to $15 or $16, but don’t fall for it. Miel can normally get it for $14 a day. Also don’t fall for the upgrade option when you pick it up. Last time the agent asked if we wanted to pay extra for power lock doors and a cd player, Miel said no, and in the end the car the agent gave us had all the perks anyway. She just knew that it was all she had available and wanted the extra money for it.
6) Miel has recently started using Kayak.com, she finds it useful, but its not the be-all-and-end-all of travel searches.
Using these tips we got our last tickets to Hawaii for $300 from DC! Patience is the key, and thinking outside the box. Good beyond what the search engines are feeding you and it makes all the difference! Happy traveling!
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Stay tuned for more posting on travel. Miel has traveled to 31 countries on five continents and we’ll be headed to Thailand for our honeymoon!
DINKS (Dual Income No Kids) Finance is a blog discussing personal finance for couples. While by no means financial experts, we own a variety of assets including real estate and stocks. We've both been up to our eyeballs in debt and have made tons of financial mistakes. However, we've both successfully retired that debt and we both do learn from our failings. We hope that our voice in this blog can help others in achieving their goals!
