What's the cheapest you've ever paid for a flight somewhere? I once paid about $40 (taxes and fees, if there were any, included) for a 90 minute flight on Iran Air, from the southern Iranian city of Shiraz to Tehran. An added bonus was getting to fly in an old Soviet-built Tupolev 154, which shook something terrible on takeoff.
I also bought a ticket for $39 for a flight from Seattle to San Francisco. The total cost of that return trip was $110. And a year or so ago, I snapped up tickets for the family to fly nonstop on Air Canada from Vancouver for Maui. I felt bad (okay not really) only paying Air Canada $410, taxes included, for the return flight.
Through a complicated online booking error, a friend of mine and her family (and several friends) booked a flight from Vancouver to Cairo for $350 (taxes and fees included). For those like my father, who would rather sail across the ocean rather than step into an airplane, the routing -- Vancouver-Toronto-Rome-Cairo-Rome-New York-Los Angeles-Vancouver-- may not have suited you, but for $350 I would have offered to walk the aisles clearing away meal trays.
Now what does all this have to do with the title of the post? Well, if you've noticed the flight deals in the newspaper recently you might have seen that you can fly to Mexico from Vancouver for $15. Of course, you'll have to leave on September 27 and return a week later. Oh, and you'll need to add $290 in taxes and fees. But for $305 you can find yourself on a beach in Mexico.
So, where does one find cheap fares? Sometimes it's luck, like the $400 round trip fare from Los Angeles to Sydney I once stumbled on just hours after the folks in Australia woke up from a night's sleep and discovered the error. But often it's take some poking around the Internet. And before you jump on that cheap fare, make sure you've added in the extras -- like fees for checked baggage, advanced seat selection, and for those with birthdays that fall on Wednesdays.
A couple of useful sights I have used.
Click on Airfare search and plug in some destinations. You can even search for a month period to find the best deal. And while you can't book directly from this site, it will give you the fare breakdown, which you can then use on a booking site or the airline's website.
www.flyertalk.com/forum/
You will find a lot of travel related information on this site. If you're looking for cheap airfares, then click on the Mileage Run Deals. Many of these deals are posted for people wanting to maximize the number of miles in their airline loyalty program, so you'll read about people who'll fly from San Francisco to Australia, only to spend a couple of hours in the airport, before reboarding the same aircraft back to the U.S.
Kayak is another useful tool for sourcing out good fares and prices on flights, hotels, and car rentals.
And remember, if you find a good deal, send me a postcard (do people still send postcards?).
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