 | |||||||||||
|
To print article, click Print on your browser's File menu. Go back | |||||||||||
|
|||||||||||
|
Recent articles by Jennifer Mulrean: • 9 ways to put the brake on car-rental costs, 4/1/2004 • Five ways to find fabulous getaways, 3/21/2004 • 10 low-cost gifts from the heart, 12/11/2003 More... |
|||||||||||
|
Related Resources Expedia.coms travel deals e-mail Related Sites LastMinuteTravel.com 11th Hour Vacations Site59 Hotwire CheapTickets Orbitz JetBlue United E-fares priceline.com |
|||||||||||
| The Basics | |||||||||||||||
| Fly on a whim -- and pay less | |||||||||||||||
|
Airlines are often looking for ways to get rid of surplus seats, and the savvy traveler has lots of options to save big even on the spur of the moment. By Jennifer Mulrean Conventional wisdom to the contrary, the early bird doesn't always get the worm. At least not when the worm is a good deal on airline tickets. Quite often, it pays to wait. Not long ago, I needed a ticket from Aspen, Colo., to Seattle. I decided to buy early, figuring if purchasing 21 days ahead was helpful, surely 60 was even better. I was surprised to find tickets listed for as much as $600 or more when I'd previously paid $400 and less for the same route at a similar time of year. That made no sense to me -- or my bank account. So, I waited and later bought the same ticket for close to $400. I took advantage of what the business types call "differential pricing." The airlines offer up seats for each flight at different prices. You pick the price you want to pay and hope there are still seats at that price. Prices will vary by time of day, time of the year and the demand for a specific flight. If youre desperate, and its a 5 p.m. flight from New York to Chicago on a Friday, you may well pay through the nose. Likewise, tickets offered far in advance, in fact, may not necessarily be the lowest-priced, but will likely be bought by passengers who value an early reservation. Being happy with less, or only paying for what's most important to you -- in my case, forgoing the certainty of having a ticket in hand far ahead of my departure -- means you can often save money. And if youre a last-minute travel planner, there are a growing number of ways you can find those savings. Here are just a few of the tools at your fingertips: An industry within an industry Weekend travel is more popular than ever, with half of all U.S. adults -- nearly 103 million -- taking at least one weekend trip per year, the Travel Industry Association of America says. Travelers plan 42% of those weekend trips at the last minute (defined by the association as within two weeks of the trip). Last-minute travelers are also twice as likely to take five or more weekend trips per year as their more scheduled counterparts. Sites like 11thHourVacations and LastMinuteTravel.com cater to this growing band of late-bookers. (See links at left.) Both sites serve as clearinghouses for cancellations, promotional offers and undersold flights, hotels and cruises around the world. At 11thHourVacations.com, you can use its "last-minute search" to find packages departing within the next two weeks. But special deals on cruises and other vacation packages can be had starting as far as 30-45 days in advance. The site also offers a points-based rewards program that rewards e-mail subscribers for visiting the site, forwarding e-mails and referring other people to the site. The points can be used for a trip or for the site's travel-related merchandise (a travel alarm clock 'costs' 500 points, a sample three-night accommodation in an Acapulco hotel, 9,900). From LastMinuteTravel.com's homepage, you can search for specific trips and dates, or you can opt for the "Friday Frenzy" search where you simply indicate your departure city for the latest options. Also, the site's "Top 25 Deals" page is worth a look. Site59, another well-known Web site catering to the spontaneous set, hawks trips starting 14 days ahead of departure right up to three hours before your plane takes off. Major airlines and travel sites aren't leaving last-minute travelers behind, either. It's just a matter of knowing where to look. At Orbitz.com, last-minute offerings include package deals on airfare and hotel accommodations, while Expedia offers separate searches for last-minute flights and hotel deals. Major discount sites Hotwire and CheapTickets.com both make it easy to look for spur-of-the-moment deals in a variety of combinations. SmarterLiving.com also does a good job of aggregating last-minute fares from major airlines and general travel sites, which can cut down the amount of clicking required to find bargains. Walk-up service For those travelers who really want to get on a 4:30 flight at 3:45, low-cost carrier JetBlue offers low prices no matter when you buy your ticket. JetBlue began service out of New York's JFK airport in February 2000 and quickly gained notice for its pricing strategy and plush leather seats. It now flies to more than 20 cities from New York, including Seattle, San Francisco, Denver and Ft. Lauderdale. Its most recent additions include San Jose, Calif., Puerto Rico and a couple stops in the Dominican Republic. While it sometimes runs specials for advanced-purchase fares, the airline never requires round-trip ticket purchases or Saturday night stays. In-flight service is minimal -- snacks rather than full meals -- but for the money you save you can probably afford your own sandwich. E-mail alerts Many travel and individual airline sites allow you to sign up for e-mail alerts on ticket prices. At many sites, including LastMinuteTravel.com and 11thHourVacations, you can personalize the alerts you receive -- trips only to Italy, or cruises rather than flights, for example. Many individual airlines, such as United and American, also send out weekly e-mails with special "E-fares" for weekend travel deals. Name-your-price services Priceline.com pioneered the name-your-price strategy, but savvy consumers have improved upon the service. One tactic used by a co-worker is to look up the lowest published fares on Expedia and then put in a bid for 30% below that on priceline.com. The itineraries can reportedly be somewhat painful -- several stops or very late flight times -- but the savings are a nice salve. One thing to consider with any of these sites: flexibility pays. Being open to a variety of destinations, or travel dates, can increase your chance of finding that unbelievable deal. Still, with the economic turbulence of recent years, all of these sites and services offer welcome hope that the skies can be friendlier to your bank account, at least. | |||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||
MSN Money's editorial goal is to provide a forum for personal finance and investment ideas. Our articles, columns, message board posts and other features should not be construed as investment advice, nor does their appearance imply an endorsement by Microsoft of any specific security or trading strategy. An investor's best course of action must be based on individual circumstances.