AIR TRAVEL

HINTS ON GETTING THAT BEST FARE AVAILABLE

There are a lot of games the airlines want you to play. Here are a few of them:

• Ask the airline for the lowest fare for your routing. Book a flight on Wednesday. Many airlines have fare wars on Friday or Monday and the tickets not bought are dumped Tuesday night.

  The best time to call airlines is just after midnight. They cancel reservations that have not been effectively made (‘holds’) and put discount seats back in inventory. Note that this happens at midnight in the time zone where the airline is HQ’d. UA, AA, TW are central time, DL, NW, CO, US are eastern time.

  Make your reservation early.

• Many discount fares require that you make a reservation 7, 14 or 21 days before your trip depending on the fare. And the deeply discounted fares beyond that may only apply to 2 or 5% of the plane's seats! The best international fares often require a reservation 30 days in advance. The airlines want you to do this because this helps them plan capacity across their system even though they make significant timetable adjustments only 5 or 6 times a year.
• Flying on a weekday usually costs less.
  Flights on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday usually offer the lowest fares. Fares are sometimes (but not always) higher on Monday and Friday than on other weekdays. The airlines like to put the screws to their bread and butter, the frequent business travellers, who are out a week at a time. Try flying leisure departing on a Saturday. The price difference will likely be enough to make you want to fly on Friday instead. 
• Think about when business people fly: early in the morning and early in the evening. Now book your flight to leave at mid-day or late and night and see what happens to the fare.
• Stay over a Saturday night.
  Staying over on a Saturday night can work miracles. Even if you fly to another city for that overnight stay. Other fares change based on how many days you stay. A common break I've seen is between 2 and 3 days overnight. 
• Airlines sell a limited number of seats at the lowest fares. When those seats sell out, the price goes up. Enter the bread and butter business traveller. And we think we're getting something from their 'frequent flyer' programs?!?
• AND...that fare must be available on both the departing and return flights. If the fare is sold out on either of these, expect to pay some bucks. Try an earlier or later flight if you can't find the fare you want or fly a different day. Once again those pesty bread and butter business travellers at play!

SOME TRICKS THE AIRLINES DO NOT WANT YOU TO KNOW ABOUT

If you're doing a lot of travel between major cities, consider hidden city tickets. Say you need to go ORD-LAX but the ticket is $1,856. Try going ORD-LAS via LAX or such and you'll see a ticket price of $425. Take your flight and throw away the return. Book the return on a different airline and route LAX-MKE via ORD. Take your flight and throw away the return. When faced with high priced tickets you can cash in. I don't recommend doing this if you're on a travel contract. Also keep in mind that you cannot check bags so make sure you get there in time to get on the plane/request a seat in the middle or back of the plane. The airlines get mad because their role is to gouge the bread and butter business traveller. It screws up their capacity model. Keep in mind THAT THESE ARE PUBLISHED FARES! THE AIRLINES WILL SAY THIS IS ILLEGAL TICKETING BECAUSE IT REDUCES THEIR CHANCE TO GOUGE YOU!

Another thing to do is the 'back to back ticketing.' Just don't do it on the same airline. Some folks at work have gotten caught doing this on the same airline and were retro'd the full coach fare. Example: You need to be in San Fran from ORD for two weeks but want to come home on the weekend inbetween. On United Book the outbound flight and final return. On American book SFO-ORD on Friday and ORD-SFO on Monday.  Both tickets have the factor now of Saturday night and longevity stays. KEEP IN MIND THESE ARE PUBLISHED FARES! THE AIRLINES WILL SAY THIS IS ILLEGAL TICKETING BECAUSE IT REDUCES THEIR CHANCE TO GOUGE YOU!

Or if you are just going somewhere like ORD-SFO on less than one week notice you can still get the saturday night stay by applying the same back to back except since you have no intention of using the return portion you pick the date and flight where you get the best fare! Be sure to do this on different airlines!

If you are going with no advance (<7 days) you can have the travel agent call the airline and ask for a voucher that will give you the fare for a 7 or 14 day purchase. Usually works on corporate contracts.

Another thing you can try is throwing away the return portion of a ticket and then getting the advance and saturday night stay deductions there on out. Example: Going to Miami each week for a couple months? Fly ORD-MIA then book your round trips as MIA-ORD so you get the Saturday night stay factor.

GENERAL TIPS (ETIQUETTE, DELAYS)

The best chance for on-time arrivals is early in the morning and Saturdays. The worst times are later in the day and Thursday and Friday.

If your flight gets cancelled/delayed,etc...DO NOT just go stand in the line. Best situation is to get in line and call their customer service on the cell phone while in line. Or goto a pay phone and dial their 800 number. Explain your situation to the person on the phone and ask for confirmation on another flight. You may or may not have to have your ticket reissued. If it’s due to mechanical/airline reasons, you could ask for the next class of service in light of your troubles.

DO NOT yell at the airline if your flight is delayed/cancelled because of bad weather. The only thing the airline owes you is to get you to your destination. Eventually. OR refund the unused portion of your ticket. UNLESS you’re going to/from SFO on UA. Then it ALWAYS is acceptable to complain about the weather because they allow too many slots there as it is. The new international terminal will not help this situation as domestics start occupying gates in the former terminal.

Pack your hygiene related items in plastic sealed bags. Forget the stupid ‘shaving bags.’ That won’t help you if your lotion, shampoo, cologne or toothpaste leaks or deoderant melts. Plus it takes up less space.

Carry your planner on with you. Or get a palm pilot gizmo. Or get more serotonin and increase your brain activity. Don’t bother trying to cram it into the rollerboard...it takes too much space. Same thing goes for jackets. That’s why they make those bins taller than the bags. If you have a window seat you could use the planner to build your nest. [I use the term nest for setting up your little personal area around your seat with books, magazines, notepad, walkman, laptop].

A lot of United's 73x and 757 fleet have extended lips on the storage bins. This means you can insert the rollerboard wheels first instead of lengthwise. This defeats my point about jackets and planners in the last paragraph. Bin utilization will be over 90%. Trivia: the 747-400 has more carryon space per person than any other commercial aircraft. 

When going through the baggage sizer, it is your right to do everything but sit down on top of the bag to get it to fit! Just don't get in a hissy with the security....they do not have to let you in the airport if you're being resistive or making bomb jokes. If this happens at a large airport, just goto a different security check point or terminal (North Terminal in SFO is my favorite! Two airlines, blind, but access the same terminal directly!)

If you don’t have a seat assignment, call the airline a day or two before your flight or the morning of your flight. Most airlines release seats slowly to control capacity. Among other things this minimizes work for the gate agents which helps you leave the gate faster.

When you checkin try to get a seat closer to the front if you are connecting. Either that or an exit row. Goto the airlines website before the flight and look at a seat map of the plane you’re scheduled to be a passenger on and figure out where you’d like to sit. Especially if you’re on a narrow body on United. The seats up front have 5 inches more legroom. American will soon have this feature completed on ALL of their aircraft but it's only 3 or 4 more inches. I'd rather have the middle seat on narrow bodies empty than more legroom. But they didn't bother to ask me. 

If at all possible, do not check any bags. Especially if bad weather is in the forecast. Changing flights and routings in the event of a situation usually means you will not see your bag for a day or more.  I realize this is not an option for most women [cheap shot!]

If you’re flying international...ALWAYS get paper tickets. Just because an airline is in an alliance (such as United with Lufthansa and SAS etal or AA with Qantas and Aer Lingus etal) doesn’t mean their systems talk to each other.

For leisure flying you might as well go Southwest (WN) everywhere. Their fares are often unbeatable with long advances (99 to 199 roundtrip almost anywhere) because they fly to smaller airports and avoid the gate fees and their focus is on one family of aircraft (73x). You might have to make 4 connections to get to your final destination because they are not a hub and spoke airline in the traditional sense though.

Been there done that

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