It seems as if someone posts or prints a set of air ticket buying tips every day now, and most of those tips belong to the "round up the usual suspects" family: Be flexible, check alternate airports, fly a low-fare airline, visit all the websites, buy domestic tickets two months in advance and international tickets three months in advance. Buy on Tuesday, Wednesday, or Sunday. Fly midweek.
You've already seen all of them, many times, and you've found out that while often they help, sometimes they don't.
But even when the many sources agree, it's clear that these old rules are no longer sufficient. The marketplace has changed, and your search strategy needs to account for those changes.
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Extras first, not last.
You have to build the important extras into your search from the get-go, not wait until the final buying process. Be specific about exactly what you want to buy. Airlines are offering more packages and options, at varying prices, and you can't be a smart buyer unless you have a clear idea of what you want and what you don't want. Each airline prices and packages these various features in its own way. At a minimum, decide whether you want:
• One or more checked bags and a carry-on that needs to go into an overhead bin.
• Meals/snacks.
• In-flight Wi-Fi.
• Advance seat assignment.
• Early boarding (an alternative to an advance seat assignment on some airlines).
• Preferred extra-legroom seating.
• Waived ticket change fee.
• No or minimal same-day standby fee for earlier flight.
Note any airlines on which you are trying to pile up miles, or if have frequent flyer status or a credit card that covers some or all of these options.
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Narrow your search quickly.
Because you have to check more sources than ever before, you need to limit the workload as much as you can. Start your search with an aggregator to identify the feasible schedules and flight options. There's no point in looking at Southwest if you want to fly to Charleston, WV, Pittsburgh, or Shreveport, for example, because it doesn't fly there or anywhere close.
But don't ignore the outliers. Some search systems do not identify routes and schedules of Allegiant and Southwest. Chances are, however, that if Allegiant is a possibility, you know about it—and it's probably your only nonstop option.
Expect a connection.
You will often find that your cheapest option is for a connecting itinerary rather than a nonstop. From my home airport in Medford, Oregon, for example, a mid-September round-trip fare to San Francisco is cheaper via Seattle ($240, five hours and five minutes, 1,031 total miles) than on a nonstop ($413, one hour and 18 minutes, 329 total miles).
If you check peak season transatlantic fares, you may well find that the cheapest option is via Kiev, Moscow, or Istanbul. Most cases aren't as extreme as these, but you have to decide whether you'd accept a connecting itinerary, with all the extra time, risks, and hassles, to knock some big dollars off your cost.
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