Finding Cheap Tickets

Here's a report from AOL.
You've heard all the basic tips for finding cheap tickets. The airline knows it too.

Book early, travel mid-week, Saturday night stays; you’ve heard the “secrets” to cheap flights before. Airlines have heard them too, and may have adjusted the availability of cheap plane tickets accordingly. Does this mean finding cheap flights will always be an elusive endeavor? Of course not. But, if you think the silver bullet to scoring cheap plane tickets is a mix of surrendering frills and booking at midnight on Wednesdays, you may be blocking your blessings. The key to finding cheap flights is to stay abreast of the slick tricks and search tips the pros use. We’ve compiled some obvious—and some not so obvious—strategies to help put you on the path to finding cheap plane tickets for yourself.

Alerts, Alerts, Alerts

When plane tickets for certain flights aren’t selling, who knows better that prices have been slashed than the airline itself? Take the time to sign up for free email alerts with your favorite airlines on the routes you’re interested in. Even airline tickets booking sites offer free alerts to keep you informed of dropping prices. It’s in their best interest to keep tabs on cheap plane tickets and let you know about it. Worried about spam? Plan on getting quotes from several different travel booking outfits often, as prices may fluctuate as much as three times a day. Email alerts for cheap plane tickets is a small price to pay for the convenience of someone else being on the lookout for cheap flights for you.

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• Anchorage
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• Phoenix
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• St. Louis

Code Sharing

Have you noticed that some flights have two airlines and two flight numbers associated with the same flight? This is a practice called “code sharing” where the same flight is sold by two different airlines, but operated by only one carrier. Many airlines enter into these partnerships in order to offer more destinations to a wider audience, as well as cheap plane tickets. When booking your plane tickets, be sure to ask if the seat you are buying is on another airline’s plane. If it is, get the itinerary and check to see how much the other airline is charging. Chances are you’ll find cheap plane tickets on the carrier proper, rather than the partner.

Taxes

A major annoyance at best -- and arguably a necessary evil -- are taxes associated with purchasing plane tickets. Some sites don’t offer an estimate of the taxes and surcharges your cheap plane tickets will incur until you are well within the booking process. But these taxes could mean the difference between scoring cheap plane tickets and ending up paying full price. Start your search for cheap flights by noting the taxes involved with buying the airfare in question. Keep notes on where you found which prices, and you can make an educated decision when it comes time to hand over your credit card number.

Cookies

Many travel booking sites want to tailor your search for cheap plane tickets to your needs, likes and dislikes. In order to do that, they need to “remember” information about when you visited their site, what you searched for, and more via a “cookie”. Cookies are stored on your hard drive, at the websites request, and offer up this important info. The problem is some travel sites will show you the prices of the cheap flights you were looking at in your previous visit, rather than any cheap plane tickets that have come up since then. In order to avoid this, you will need to clean out any existing cookies every time you search for the travel sites to offer up the most current prices. Not all travel booking websites participate in this practice, but it doesn’t hurt to clean them out anyway and put the cheap plane tickets odds in your favor.

On the Horn

If you are having trouble finding the cheap plane tickets you are looking for, don’t hesitate to call the airline directly. There may be a fee for using a telephone ticketing agent, so take advantage of brainstorming options and cheap plane tickets possibilities until you’re satisfied. Travel agents are still a viable option for finding cheap plane tickets not offered through the online travel booking websites, especially for complicated routes and less-traveled international destinations. If you’re searching for popular routes on major airlines, they may have the same cheap flights you can find online, so use your best judgment.