Fighting the good fight - to make the body congruent with the soul... Old blog http://3rddimension.wordpress.com New blog http://sett.com/thetinyoctopus/
War in Heaven
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Finding the best rates for flights

Seems to be alot of world travellers around here. How do you all find the best rates for flights? I don't fly out much if at all so I just hop on one of the flight search engines and see what comes out. I always thought this was optimal until I joined the Virgin America Elevate club and suddenly I'm inundated with offers for flights with lower prices than what I can find on the search engines.

I did a bit of research and a lot of people claim that flight search engines only give out lowest advertised prices - and not the lowest price the airline is truly willing to give out. Given that how do you get the "real deals" for flights? I may need to leave the country in approx. 1 or 2 weeks and given that timeframe it looks like a lot of flights are in the high range. After my Virgin America experience it seems like airlines reward loyal customers - should I place all my eggs in one basket or is there a better way to get good deals?

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Chris Dame
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As a full-time traveler for years now, I can tell you there is only one search engine that's worth using. Every search engine has the same problems, like the one you listed, the fact that some airlines (like American Air) block engines from finding their flights, and the fact that they are all limited. Except one.

http://matrix.itasoftware.com/

They aren't limited because they don't sell flights. Because they don't make commission, they can cover every airline around the world and find the lowest internal prices. Just go to the airline's website to book the flight and you are set. In my searches, 95% of the time this finds the lowest price and best flight. Plus the interface is perfect for comparing flights. That remaining 5% is so much work to figure out that I've basically stopped.

This only applies if you have a time and place to travel already, though. If you, like Tynan or myself, have more freedom, you can pay attention to special deal sites and find amazingly cheap flights that only exist for a few hours. I mostly fly for free with miles, but that's a different topic altogether.

All of that said, Virgin is my favorite airline to fly in America, so you wouldn't be doing bad sticking with them if you only fly to their limited number of cities. Their airplanes make all other airplanes seem like they are cobbled together from spare parts, and their service is impeccable. If you want to fly to smaller cities or international cities, American Air or United are the way to go for loyalty, as you can fly pretty much anywhere with them.

TravelTrue.net

Fighting the good fight - to make the body congruent with the soul... Old blog http://3rddimension.wordpress.com New blog http://sett.com/thetinyoctopus/
War in Heaven
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Excellent - just what I was looking for!!! Thanks a ton!

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