Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with airfare

What is the cheapest way to get to Boston, MA from Cleveland, OH to see a concert?

seanmhobson1988 — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 15:34:11 -0800

What is the cheapest way to get to Boston, MA from Cleveland, OH to see a concert? An awesome Japanese singer named Utada will be performing at the Paradise Club in Boston, MA next year. The concert will be Friday, February 5th 2010 at 7pm. So far the plan is to get there Thursday, stay the night at a friend’s place, go to the concert Friday and then leave the same night.

I looked into plane tickets and there at present there about $350 roundtrip per person. It would be really unfortunate to have to pay $350 in airfare when the tickets to the concerts were less than $50.

Any other ideas guys?

P.S. Driving is a less preferred suggestion, as that would mean skipping more than 2 days of college classes.

Thanks in advance!

Home (not broke) for Xmas.

nicoleincanada — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 04:20:45 -0800

Please help me get from Europe to Canada for the Xmas holidays without having to live out of a cardboard box. This is my first time living abroad, and I've rather naively discovered that holy crap, airfare to North America is super expensive from mid-December to early January. I've managed to get a bit of wiggle room on my travel dates from my employers (I work at a school and the holidays are pre-scheduled), but the reasonable/cheap airfare is still a day or two out of reach and I don't want to push my luck much further.

This isn't a make or break thing - I've promised the family I'll go home either way - but if there's a way to get from Paris to Winnipeg without spending $1800 Cdn after tax, I'd be appreciative. Especially considering $1800 is the price I managed by wiggling the dates.

Is finding reasonable airfare at peak travel time in December a total pipe dream? Am I just booking too late, or too early? Are there any genuinely useful sites for this sort of thing? I've tried both Expedia and Travelocity and find them pretty useless when the destination isn't a major hub - they seem to miss a lot of cheap fares I can find by checking airlines myself.

My holidays are from Dec. 19 to Jan. 3 (like the rest of the Xmas-celebrating world). Employers are willing to let me leave the Wednesday before and return the Wednesday after, which is how I managed the price above. I'd like to be home for Xmas day but I'd be willing to leave pre-NY if that generally makes a difference. I'm also willing to fly to other European centres or take the train to get a better price.

FYI, I've checked other threads on this site and, oddly, can't find a similar question, but my AskMF skills might be lacking. So if you find the same question previously, by all means share.

Thanks much in advance.

Have to fly in July, but we'll adapt to anything else!

amicamentis — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 09:53:46 -0800

How to find the best NYC --> Europe flight deals when both day of week and destination are flexible. Caveat: flying out July 2010. My roommate and I are planning an extended European vacation beginning around the middle of July next year. I know that this is the absolute worst time to fly out, so we need some tips about how to cut down the price.

We are flying from NYC but would be willing to travel to Newark or even Philadelphia if there were significant savings. I have used RyanAir in the past and am familiar with inter-European travel, which is why we don't care much about the city that we first land in. So far, it looks like flying into Dublin is the least expensive. We would also be fine with Paris, London, Glasgow, Amsterdam, or Geneva.

What now? I've heard that if you're flying during peak season then you should just buy tickets as early as possible because they will never lower. However, with our flexibility it seems that there may be some deal, somewhere a bit closer to our flight date. Is this wishful thinking?

We would appreciate any website recommendations that would give fares on neighboring cities as well, or flexibility about the day of the week. I've tried Kayak and liked it - are there others?

In addition, our vacation will probably continue for several months. Will the customs agents give us any problems for having a return ticket for more than three months from the day we enter the country?

Thanks!

Does this site exist?

visual mechanic — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 13:02:53 -0800

Is there a website that allows you to post your reason/story why you need cheap / discounted airfare and then allows other people to donate frequent flyer miles to you? Kind of a democratic way of setting up needs with excess miles? Seems like a good idea - and something I kind of need right now - but I can't find anything like it.

Are there any affordable one-way tickets to Europe?

msbrauer — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 11:23:25 -0800

Are there inexpensive one-way tickets from the US to Europe? I'll be in NYC and want to get from there to Europe inexpensively around Sept. 1. My final destination is Paris, but anywhere in Europe served by the cheap airlines (RyanAir, et al) will work in a pinch. I only need a one-way ticket, and any return ticket will be useless to me. There are plenty of deals to Europe at the moment, but as always, they seem to be for roundtrip flights. Is there anything to be done?

When buying a plane ticket, how do you decide whether to cash in your frequent flyer miles?

inatizzy — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 06:45:49 -0800

When you buy a plane ticket, how do you decide whether to cash in your frequent flyer miles, or pay cash and earn the miles? I have a specific decision to make that's prompting this question:

I've accumulated about 50,000 frequent flyer miles on a major airline over about 5 years of personal domestic travel. I'm going to Buenos Aires in September, one-way, economy, and I can either:

a) buy a ticket for about $450-500 (on two different airlines that I don't normally fly, with 2 stops on the way, about 16-19 hours trip time), or

b) spend 20,000 miles (on "major airline", 1 or 2 stops along the way, 14 hours trip time).

To buy the one-way ticket on "major airline" would cost around $1800 or more and I'd earn 5800 frequent flyer miles. Way too much for me to pay!

How do you decide whether to spend the miles or the money? I've really never been sure when to cash them in, but I'd sort of like to do that now because I could use the $$ to help secure an apartment, settle in, etc. (I'm moving there on my own without a job to pay for moving expenses.) But I'm also a little hesitant because I wonder, is this really getting the best value for my miles? Should I save them for later?

For what it's worth, I'm probably going to be in South America indefinitely after this trip and I'm unlikely to fly the "major airline" to travel between cities and countries there. However, I may use it to come back to the US for visits (such as at Christmas). Thanks for your advice!

Whats the best way to buy a flight for a vacation without getting screwed?

schindyguy — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 17:33:42 -0800

Whats the best way to buy a flight for a vacation that you know you are going on (greater than 3 months in the future)? I am tired of getting screwed for being prepared. I know I need two tickets from Los Angeles (LAX) to Maui (OGG) departing December 12 and returning December 19.

So I thought I would give bing.com's future price utility a try with the flight. I just got a "Bing Travel Alert" that suggests its a good time to buy...http://www.bing.com/travel/flight/flightSearch?o=LAX&d1=12%2F12%2F2009&p=2&src=fct&r1=12%2F19%2F2009&cid=10713&viewMode=list&e=OGG

Since when has the market for tickets been dictated like this? I thought the earlier you book, the better rate you should get. I guess this isn't the case as I learned from my previous purchase of 2 round trip flights from cheaptickets.com. I booked the reservation to Los Cabos 4 months in advance and if I would have waited 1 week before the trip, I would have saved $125 per ticket. Is that insane? In what situation would preparedness not be beneficial? I guess with flights.

How can I guarantee I wont set myself up for another Los Cabos irritation? What can someone do to protect themselves from these market fluctuations?

Strategies for getting the cheapest possible airfares

special-k — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 12:10:50 -0800

Travelbugfilter: What are some of your tips, tricks, and strategies for getting the best airfares for both domestic and international travel? I have recently rediscovered the joys of travel and would like to get out more on the weekends (domestic) or 2-3 week international trips. Although I mostly travel last minute, I am willing to be more organized if I can save considerably on fares. I usually try Kayak or Southwest but have no real ideas beyond that. Even though I am no longer a student I still have my STA card (but have never found good fares there).
Do you have some sort of routine/strategy/tricks to get the best possible fare? Do you check certain websites in order? Is booking directly from an airline better in some cases? Are travel agents (especially ones that are country specific e.g. India) better for some countries than others? Are there good lists to worth signing up for?

Is there any reason not to replace a round trip ticket with two cheaper one-way tickets?

ramenopres — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 18:59:55 -0800

Is there any reason to buy round trip airfare when one-way is cheaper? This might be a ridiculous question, but I've heard so much about why it's smart to buy round trip tickets that I'm a little paranoid. Is there a reason other than the usual price hike that makes buying two one-ways instead of a round trip ticket a bad idea? I'm going to fly domestically and buying two one-way ticket APPEARS to be cheaper at this point (just looking at search results on kayak.com and similar sites, which purportedly include taxes). Is there a disadvantage to doing it this way?

I'm flying into SFO within the next couple of weeks, if it matters. A current round trip price is around $300, while a one-way ticket costs $120.

To buy or not to buy...That is my question.

clpage — Mon, 18 May 2009 16:50:18 -0800

How soon in advance should we purchase airline tickets to get the cheapest flights? I already perused the previously asked posts about cheap airfare and most of them were 3-4 years old. Given the change in the economy (and the downturn in the airline industry), I thought I would query the Ask MeFi community once more.

The husband and I are flying from DC to Portland, driving up to Seattle, and then flying back to DC at the beginning of August. When I started checking airfare prices about a month ago, Southwest and Frontier had the most reasonable fares.

However, over the past 4-6 weeks, the prices on those same flights have gone up by almost $200.

The husband read an article on the NY Times which suggests the best time to buy airfare in the current economy is 6-8 weeks out. In your recent experience(s), what are the chances that the prices (on these or any other airlines) will go down if we wait until the 6-8 week mark? Since our travel dates are fixed, should we just suck it up and buy now?

Thanks in advance for your help!

Booking multi-stop international travel

aatreya — Sun, 17 May 2009 14:43:41 -0800

What is the best way to book a multi-stop series of international flights, preferably with flexibility to modify the itinerary later? I'm planning to travel this summer to visit a bunch of countries: India, Egypt, Cyprus, Greece, Turkey, Lebanon, and maybe Israel, Italy, or Morocco. I've figured out the travel dates for the first half of the trip, but the second half (including my return date) is still TBD. Unfortunately, parts of the itinerary may not be finalized for a while, but I don't want this to result in a bad price on the first half the trip. How can I get a good deal on airfares but still have flexibility to add or modify a destination at a later date?

Is there an airline that will take me to a less popular destination for less money

ramenopres — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 10:22:18 -0800

Are there domestic airlines that charge less to fly to you to and from smaller cities? I heard about an airline, the name of which now escapes me, that will charge substantially less for a trip to and from smaller airports maybe twenty miles away from the bigger cities. Fees like baggage are upfront and optional. Do you know what that airline was, and are there others like it? Alternative question, then: How do I do get to some bigger destinations (LA, Chicago) for little money, especially if I can stand some hassle? I don't have to fly but I do want to get there within a day or two.

Where to find airfare feeds

cubedweller — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 04:29:13 -0800

I'm working on a side project around air travel and I need a good source of airfares. Something like an affiliate feed would be great but it needs to have as many city pairs and prices as possible. The best solution would be an API through some of the major OTAs and aggregators. Any clues?

Travel Plan Assistance Please

madmamasmith — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 17:48:40 -0800

Traveling from Texas to Canada, Bear Creek Provincial Park in Summerland BC. Is the Vancouver Airport the closest airport or should we fly in to Seattle and drive up? Not sure the best route. Help....airline tickets into Vancouver are like $600!

I'm leaving on a Jetplane (or Two).

santojulieta — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 17:22:25 -0800

Can you help me figure out flights to Milan, Italy in two weeks? Right now, I can fly [Chicago - Frankfurt - Milan] and [Milan - Copenhagen - Chicago] for about $525. I'll be traveling March 25th to April 1st.

Two questions.

1. I have the opportunity for longish layovers in both Frankfurt and Copenhagen. Can I do anything in either place for about 7 hours?

2. Would it be more practical to fly into a different European city and then Easy Jet or Air One into Milan by booking two separate flights rather than one two-leg flight?

Will United care if I skip the first leg of a two-leg itinerary?

myeviltwin — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 15:19:58 -0800

I'm flying from the east coast to southern California via San Francisco in a few weeks. I've decided that for the return trip, I'd like to drive up to San Francisco a few days early, skip the first leg of my return flight (SoCal to SFO), and just catch the second leg. (I would just rebook my ticket but the change fee is ludicrous -- well in excess of the entire ticket cost.) Is this a dumb idea? I'm planning to call United the evening beforehand and inform them that I "have to" miss the first leg so that they don't cancel my entire itinerary. Will United let me do this? Or will they not let me on the second flight unless I pay them some crazy amount? Some of the answers to this question suggest that what I want to do might be a problem. I'm looking for people's experiences doing this or something similar, on any airline but especially United.

best websites for cheap weekend fares from my city to any destination

comah — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 00:11:16 -0800

I've been swamped at work for months, and was pretty much shocked to realize that I don't have any mtgs on Friday, and Monday is a holiday.... I started searching for flights online, and for the obvious places, where I have family or close friends, I couldn't find anything cheap (~$250, from PDX or better yet, EUG). I'm open to going someplace more random, but all the searches I could find required a destination. What I'd like is a list of the cheapest flight (& associated airline) from a given city to *any* city. I want to input a departure city and dates, and get a lot list of ~50-100 destination cities and prices. kayak/buzz is the closest I've found, but it only does this for "top 25" destinations. I'm looking for more destinations to increase the likelihood of finding something near a friend. does this exist?

Help me buy the cheapest plane ticket I can

JPD — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 18:46:08 -0800

How do I game airline yield management systems? So I am looking to purchase a ticket to visit Barcelona in May and I'm wondering if anyone knows if it is possible to back into how they trade off load vs price vs time to departure?

Basically my theory is that given the incredibly weak economies in the US and Spain demand for flights should be significantly below normal, but that the models the airlines use won't begin to discount the fares until we get closer to the departure date. I'm assuming that this is some sort of non-linear function.

To simply my question - How close to a departure date will the yield management math start to tell the airlines to lower price, or conversely at what point should I take a ticket price that isn't moving as a sign that loads are as expected and I should just bit the bullet?

Additionally is there some place I can find historic fares for different routes?

Before anyone suggests it - farecast.com is lame.

Can I travel extremely last minute for cheap?

Scientifik — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 11:46:42 -0800

What if I don't care where I want to go? Is it possible if you were extremely flexible to travel to random places for very cheap. Say you just show up at the airport, walk up to the ticket counter and say "I don't really care where I'm going, do you have any flights that are departing in 30 minutes that have an empty seat you can give me for dirt cheap?" Also I'm guessing people at the gate have some flexibility in terms of what they can charge you for the fare. If a flight is 1/2 full at least they would get something than nothing right?

Help me find a good travel agency in Austin, TX for booking flights to Hong Kong!

llamabucket — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 09:14:41 -0800

Help me find a good travel agency in Austin, TX for booking flights to Hong Kong! I'm looking to book a flight from Austin to Hong Kong for after the New Year (around Jan. 5) and need a good, reputable travel agency that offers low prices.

My parents used to use a small travel agency here in town where most of their agents speak Mandarin, but unfortunately, I don't speak a lick of Mandarin, only Cantonese, and my parents are out of the country. So, I'm looking for a larger, more reputable travel agency here in Austin that offers good deals for individuals.

I've looked online and have found prices on Kayak and other places, but I'm just curious what prices a travel agency can offer me... hopefully lower than what I have found so far online.

Bonus to any travel agencies that have agents that can speak Cantonese, but it's not a necessity. I understand that most agencies that can speak Cantonese are probably smaller agencies that aren't too customer-friendly or reputable.

If it matters, this is my itinerary:

Departure (around Jan. 5, flexible date though)
Austin to LAX or SFO
LAX/SFO to HKG

Return (around Jan. 15, flexible departure date as well)
Beijing, China to LAX/SFO
LAX/SFO to Austin

Thanks in advance!

Past prices on oil and airfares?

ricochet biscuit — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 15:17:10 -0800

Is there a resource anywhere that will give me either (a) historical data for the last year or two on the price of oil (b) similar data for airline tickets or (c) ideally, both? In a perfect world, I would like something that would tell me that on March 3rd or September 6th this year, or December 8th last year, the price per barrel of oil was ____ and a good ticket price for air travel along certain major routes (JFK-Heathrow, say) was ______.

I have to write a brief analysis of travel patterns for the last year and while I know that oil is roughly half the price now it was this summer, I would like some citations to back this up. And ideally, I would like to match this to airlines' pricing. Any suggestions?

Will Christmas airfares get cheaper than they are right now?

blueshammer — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 14:28:01 -0800

I need to travel the weekend after Christmas, returning the weekend after New Years. Am I likely to find cheaper air fares if I wait? I need to travel either from Minneapolis or Chicago to Denver, and then back, departing Dec. 28 (+/- 1 day) and returning Jan 2. I've found fares in the $250-$300 range that I'm considering, but I'm wondering if, historically, airlines have some sale or release some block of tickets later that I should hope to capitalize on. I can't imagine it's the case, but I know you know.

Wanted: Getaway Vehicle. And Pilot.

Acari — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 07:58:18 -0800

How does one charter a plane? [and how much would it cost?] If a group of people [say around 20 +/- 18, but I'm not up on plane capacities, so if it's either 5 people or 150 people I'd like to know that, too. the exact number for this question should be 'one planeload'.] were to attempt to go to from edmonton, alberta to [undetermined city], Cuba for a couple of weeks in december, would chartering a plane be a reasonable way to get there?

That was a shambles of a sentence. Sorry.

I read in an earlier thread that sometimes flight schools will offer "flight instruction" but that seems like a long shot when crossing borders. The only charter information I can find right now is of the package vacation / strict schedule / all inclusive variety.

What I guess I'm asking is:
How do I find out how much it costs to rent a plane?
Who do I even ask?
What is the magical number of people that makes chartering a plane definitely cheaper than individual ticketing?

Overlapping airline itineraries?

jckll — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 13:07:59 -0800

Is it kosher to book two separate airline reservations, flying to/from the same cities, with the same airline, that overlap one another? Here's my situation. I live in City AAA. I fly to city BBB on Sundays for work several consecutive weeks, returning home (AAA) on Thursdays. I have my tickets booked several weeks in advance. Some weekends I stay in BBB without flying home. I have just found out that I must be home in AAA for one day that happens to be in the middle of an airline itinerary I have already made.

Sunday 8/17 fly AAA-BBB (ticket already booked)
Stay in BBB for 11 days
Return 8/28 BBB-AAA (ticket already booked)

I just discovered I have to be in AAA for Monday, 8/25. I can book a round trip, BBB-AAA-BBB, flying BBB-AAA 8/24 and returning AAA-BBB 8/25 for the rest of the week, until I fly home on 8/28 (BBB-AAA). This will cost me roughly the same amount as my standard weekly reservation. And the flights are on a different airline than I always take, they have random stops, and are at crap times.

I have discovered, however, that I can book the following itineraries:
BBB-AAA 8/24
AAA-BBB 8/31
and
AAA-BBB 8/25
BBB-AAA 9/4
For a similar price to what I would be booking regularly every week, and plus these flights are my normal nonstoppers, instead of a one-stop-each-way that I would have to book if I just made the one/two day round trip 8/24-8/25. And it gets my travel for the next few weeks out of the way.

I'm just not sure if this is against some airline policy, and/or if it is, if they're going to care/catch me. If I did it I would have three overlapping itineraries, flying to/from the same cities, on the same airline.

It's not very easy to understand what I'm trying to describe, I hope I did a good enough job. Anyone know?

Transatlantic bereavement fares

K.P. — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 18:23:05 -0800

In the (possibly very) near future I will want to fly from the UK to the US for a relative's funeral. Can you help me find the lowest fare? Any day now I expect to get a phonecall that my grandfather (in Greenville, NC) has passed away. I intend to get on a plane shortly after that and attend the funeral, but I would prefer to get the best deal possible.

I know that I could simply call any airline, establish my reason (give them my name and the hospice or funeral home's number), and get a "bereavement fare" significantly lower than their current published ticket price on the next plane out.

However I have also read that recently many airlines have decreased or eliminated their "bereavement fare" discounts--and none of the airlines explicitly state (apart from relatives that are included) what their bereavement fare policies and price schedules are. I have also read that calling an airline and asking for a bereavement fare on the next available plane can be considerably more expensive than booking online for a flight 8 hours later.

I am in East Sussex and would prefer to fly out of Gatwick (although Heathrow and other South East airports are options) to New Bern, Wilmington, or RDU. Right now my best option would be to fly with Zoom to New York and then SouthWest/USAir/Delta or Amtrak into NC. But I don't know anything about any possible bereavement fares they might offer over the phone to take into consideration.

Can you offer me any specific advice (along the lines of "Delta actually did a very generous bereavement discount for me in March" or "Don't even bother calling SouthWest.") or general advice for making this trip more affordable? I intend to be there, but I do not want to drastically overspend if I don't have to just because I'm not in the mood to search for bargains.