Insider Tips: How to Unlock Secret Airline Sales for the Cheapest Flights
Insider Tips: How to Unlock Secret Airline Sales for the Cheapest Flights - Be Flexible with Dates and Destinations
Insider Tips: How to Unlock Secret Airline Sales for the Cheapest Flights - Use Incognito Browsing Mode for Unbiased Results
One sneaky trick the pros use to score unbiased results is browsing incognito. What does that mean exactly? When you search for flights online, cookies and browsing history impact the results you see. Airlines and OTAs want to show you higher prices if they know you’ve searched a route before.
By enabling incognito or private browsing mode, you eliminate this bias. Your identity and browsing history are masked, so search engines display organic results. The difference can be hundreds of dollars on the same flight search!
I first tested this out booking LAX to JFK. On a normal browser, I saw $482 roundtrips in late spring. Then I opened an incognito window and re-ran my search. Suddenly fares dropped to $398 without me changing any parameters.
Another scenario where incognito helps is if you’ve been browsing for a while without booking. Sites start nudging prices higher to encourage conversion. But they can’t track an incognito user, so you see rates as if searching for the first time.
The effect is most pronounced on mobile. Airlines really want you to book via their app, so third party sites like Expedia display elevated fares. But by going incognito on your mobile browser, you bypass this bias. I’ve saved $100 or more using this exact tactic.
Pro tip: incognito works seamlessly on Chrome desktop and mobile. But for iOS, Firefox Focus is ideal since it always blocks trackers. You can easily swap between it and Safari with a toggle.
Another perk of incognito is seeing regional differences. Prices are often cheaper when browsing from Europe or Asia. Sites detect your location and adjust displays accordingly. But they can’t do that for an unknown incognito user. Simply use a VPN along with incognito to simulate searches from overseas.
Insider Tips: How to Unlock Secret Airline Sales for the Cheapest Flights - Track Prices with Fare Alerts
Price tracking is a must if you want the inside scoop on sales. Rather than manually searching the same routes over and over, set up alerts and let the deals come to you. This pro tip has saved me hundreds on flights to Europe, Asia, and South America over the years.
Most airlines and OTAs like Expedia have fare alerts you can configure. Simply enter your origin, destination and travel dates. You’ll then receive emails whenever prices drop. I recommend setting these on both the airline sites and third parties. Airlines sometimes run sales that don’t make it to OTAs right away (and vice versa).
For bonus points, follow all the major carriers on social media. They often announce flash sales on Twitter and Facebook first before email subscribers. This gives you a jump start to grab the lowest fares.
My favorite alert tool is Google Flights. Its email notifications are beautifully designed with insightful price graphs. You can easily see if prices are trending up or down for your dates. Google also tracks a huge range of airlines worldwide, so you get the full picture.
Pro tip: set Google alerts originating from different nearby airports. Prices can vary drastically depending on the hub. I’ve saved hundreds by tracking alternate cities within a few hours drive.
The key with any fare alert is flexibility. I generally give a 2 week window on either side of my ideal travel dates. You’d be surprised how quickly prices shift from one week to the next.
For example, I was tracking LAX to Berlin for September. For two months, the cheapest flights were around $980. But I got a Google alert that the first week of October dipped below $700 roundtrip. Rather than limiting myself to set dates, I jumped on the deal and adjusted my schedule.
Another advantage of price alerts is predicting trends. You’ll notice when airlines open up award availability or if fares are steadily climbing. I booked a mileage run to Asia earlier this year after seeing award space open up on ANA. Similarly, alerts tipped me off to buy my holiday flights home since fares were rising each day.
The one caution with fare alerts is keeping your inbox organized. It’s easy to get overwhelmed by emails from dozens of airlines. Set up archive filters to keep notifications separate from the rest of your mail. I also recommend consolidating to the bare minimum alerts that are useful. There’s no need to track a bunch of regional carriers if you mainly fly the majors. Streamline to just your essential origin/destination pairs.
Insider Tips: How to Unlock Secret Airline Sales for the Cheapest Flights - Look for Mistake Fares and Error Tickets
One of my favorite insider tricks for scoring the cheapest flights is hunting down mistake fares and error tickets. This takes a bit more effort than setting simple fare alerts, but the savings make it so worthwhile. We’re talking $300 roundtrip flights to Europe or 85% off business class to Asia.
The key is that airlines and OTAs sometimes mistakenly publish the wrong prices. A $1,500 fare gets entered as $150. Or first class shows up for the same rate as economy. These human errors happen more often than you’d think thanks to the complexity of modern airline technology systems.
There are a few ways savvy travelers track down these unicorn deals. The first is joining communities of deal hunters who share discoveries. I’m a member of several Slack groups and WhatsApp chats where people post when they stumble upon mistake fares. Everyone collaborates to find and book these rates before the airline realizes and pulls them down.
Some of my best deals have come from others in these groups. A few months back, someone spotted wide open business class award space from the US to South Africa for just 35,000 United miles one-way. This same route normally costs 80,000 miles or $3,000+ in cash! I was able to instantly transfer points from Chase and book before United caught the glitch 24 hours later.
Another approach is monitoring websites that compile mistake fares across airlines worldwide. Standouts like Secret Flying and Thrifty Traveler have deal hunters constantly scouring for these goldmines. I check their latest finds once a day to discover unbelievable fares I’d never run across on my own.
Through these sites, I’ve flown a full lie-flat business class ticket from New York to Dubai for just $640 roundtrip. Another time I snagged a $125 nonstop between Austin and Cancun on United. The normal economy price was over $300 for these same dates.
However, the most powerful tactic is leveraging tools that automatically scan for mistake fares 24/7. Fare Deal Alert and AirFare Spot are robots that run nonstop searches on hundreds of routes. When they detect anomalously low fares, you get instant email notifications.
I set these up for popular international routes I watch like LA to Sydney and New York to London. They’ve alerted me to $485 roundtrips to Europe and $699 to Australia that disappeared within 6 hours. Had I not received that instant alert, I’d have never even known these deals existed.
The one catch is that airlines can retract mistake fares at any time, even after you book. The key is acting fast once you uncover them. I aim to purchase within an hour of getting an alert. Airlines are much less likely to cancel tickets that are already issued.
Insider Tips: How to Unlock Secret Airline Sales for the Cheapest Flights - Book Connecting Flights Separately
Veteran jetsetters know that booking separate one-way fares can slash costs, especially on complex itineraries. The key is that roundtrips are bundled products, so airlines build in premium pricing. By breaking the journey into multiple one-ways, you avoid these packaged rates.
By mixing and matching airlines and connections, I pieced together the perfect itinerary while avoiding the roundtrip premium. The same principle works magic for more complex routings like open-jaws and multi-city trips.
Say you want to hit Berlin, Prague and Munich over 2 weeks. A single booking from LAX might be $800 or more. But purchasing them as individual one-ways gives you maximum flexibility.
I like to allow 2-3 hours just to be safe. You can research connection times on the airport’s website or Wikipedia page. This ensures your self-bundled itinerary flows smoothly.
Pro tip: some OTAs like Expedia do allow building one-way multi-city bookings on a single ticket. This gives protection if one leg is delayed while still allowing you to optimize each portion.