7 Secrets to Scoring Cheap Airline Tickets

Thinking of doing some air travel this summer? Here are some tips:

This is a summary of an article at: 7 Secrets to Scoring Cheap Airline Tickets

1. Buy at the right time. Avoid high volume booking times- best is Tuesdays and Wednesdays and six weeks before a trip.  When shopping for a group make each reservation separately since airline systems are set up to give everyone in your group the same, higher price even if a few cheaper seats could be had by a subset of your group.

2. Fly at the right time. Avoid vacation time—June 15 to September 6 and around major holidays for domestic flights. Generally the cheap travel days are Tuesdays and Wednesdays at 6 a.m. or the red-eye as well as choosing connecting instead of direct flights.

3. Be flexible. Willing to fly out or land at an airport further away.

 4. Use the right tools.  Bing Price Predictor, airfarewatchdog.com, and farecompare.com alert you to deals as they arise; yapta.com does all of that and, for certain airlines like JetBlue or Alaska, if the price drops below what you paid, they’ll detail how you can get a refund for the difference. And many airlines have put up their own deal alert tools.

5. Check the fees. Luggagelimits.com lets you compare the baggage fees that different airlines charge for a particular flight, and Smarter Travel offers a helpful (and printable) luggage fee chart. Kayak.com lets you compare the range of fees airlines charge, like those for meals, pets, and unaccompanied minor service.

6. Use airline perks. Airline credit cards offer great deals.  A list of recommended cards is available from consumercreditcardguide.com.

7. Get information from a range of sources. Kayak, Orbitz, Expedia, and others can turn up deals such as two one-way flights—flying out on one carrier and back on another—that won’t show up on the airlines’ own websites. Though often the best prices still are on the airlines’ sites as low-cost airlines like Southwest, JetBlue, Allegiant, and Ryanair don’t usually list their ticket prices elsewhere.

Bonus: How to do make your own passport photo.
For the Frugal Prosumer way of getting a passport picture inexpensively go to ePassportPhoto.com. They instruct you how to make your own compliant set of passport photos. They help you:
  • Correctly take your own photo
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Watch the video below to see how it's done.

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