Flights

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Last Updated: Friday, 05 July 2024 14:56
Published: Wednesday, 09 February 2022 01:33
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Flights:

There are many Airlines both domestic and international that you can take from USA to any other place in the world. Some airlines are most effective for flying within USA, while others are cheaper when flying internationally. It's a non solvable problem on how to find the cheapest flights to anywhere. One of the sites that comes closest to helping you is www.google.com/flights. Here you can put in your dates and it will show you the whole monthly grid for all departure and arrival dates. It doesn't allow you to book from their site, but gives you instructions on where to go to book at the price they are showing you. I've used google flights website almost exclusively to find best deals on flights. you can also just explore a country or just explore to find cheapest flights to anywhere. A lot of neat info.

Few tips when booking flight tickets:

  • Book Directly: Always book directly from the airline website (i.e www.delta.com, www.klm.com, etc). That way you deal directly with the Airlines company. Also, as a sided bonus, you have 24 hours to cancel any flight and get full refund. This is by law of USA, and no Airline can deny that. IF you book via a travel agent, then this protection doesn't apply.
  • NO OTA: Never book from travel companies or  3rd party reseller websites (OTA or Online Travel Aggregator) (i.e www.expedia.com, www.cheapoair.com, etc) for reasons mentioned above. These middle men companies basically butcher you when you try to modify or cancel an existing reservation. They will try to sell you tickets $5-$10 cheaper (by using coupons when you book your ticket the very first time) than booking directly from the airlines, but it's not worth it.
  • No Insurance: Never buy insurance or higher priced tickets which provide you protection in case your flights get cancelled or your plans change. Such insurance costs a lot of money. It's usually cheaper to call the airlines directly, and pay a little money ($100 or so along with the fare difference) and get the tickets modified.
  • Use Good Credit Card: Always book airlines tickets with a credit card that provides full protection incase you aren't satisfied with your purchase. A credit card like "Chase" has always covered me in case airlines refused to refund.
  • Fly off season: When you fly off season, you can fly for so much cheaper than when you fly during holiday season. For USA, peak prices are in November around ThanksGiving, in December round Christmas, during summer (from late May to Mid August), during spring break (mid March) and during long weekends (.e when it's aholiday on Fridy or Monday, giving you a 3 day weekend). These high priced dates very much coincide with when schools are off in those cities. Whenever Kids schools are having a holiday, prices go up significantly, as everyone wants to use Kids holidays to travel. In USA, school attendance is mandatory, and kids can't skip schools for more than 10 days or so in the whole year (unless accompanied by a doctor's note). So, everyone schedule their travel plans around Kid's holidays. Best to avoid those times. If you do have to travel uring these holidays or peak travel time, try to drive to that place and choose a place within driving distance. That way you don't have to cough up 10X the price for flight tickets. You will still be paying higher for hotels or lodging.
  • Single Reservation Code: Always book flights which are all under a single reservation code. What I mean is that if there's a layover or a stop in between your flight, then all segments of your flight should all be booked under a single code. This will automatically happen if you book your ticket directly with airlines, so it's not an issue there. However, if you book tickets thru OTA, then they may sometimes book your tickets separately for each segment of your flight. If you are traveling internationally, those tickets may not even be valid, and you may not even be allowed to board the plane. It's very important to note this, as there will be no refund and no alternate flight to take.
  • Beware of Scam: Google flights will list a lot of legal scam OTA in their search. I've fallen prey to these, and never thought that companies like google will allow scammers to be in their search results. Reviews are all over the internet, on how these scam companies never refund any money, nor have any customer service. By the time you file dispute with your credit card, it's already beyond 60 days, so you are out of luck. Some of such OTA:
    • Kiwi => www.kiwi.com : => This is one of the scam companies that shows up in top search results. They provide cheaper flights, the only catch is you won't have any flights.
    • Flight Network => www.flightnetwork.com : => This is another of those scam companies, that I've been a victim of. They literally disappear after taking the money. I got flight cancellation emails, no customer service to talk to. Thanks to "chase dispute provision" on their credit card, I was able to dispute the charge and get all of it back. I was lucky as my flight was within 60 days, so I found out.
    • FlightHub => https://www.flighthub.com : => This scammer shows up in search results from Kayak, as well as few other scam companies. Their prices will always be few hundred dollars cheaper, but your tickets may get cancelled, or may turn out to be fake. On top of that, they will charge you for multiple insurance. You have to keep on watching your credit card for every charge from them, as mot of them will be bogus charges.

 

Domestic Flights in USA:

These are few airlines which are really cheap for flying domestic:

  • Spirit / JetBlue Airlines: These used to be separate companies, but announced merger in 2022. These are one of the cheapest airlines as you can make a roundtrip within USA for < $100. However, they allow only 1 carry on and no checkin for free. Even the carry on can't be anything larger than a backpack that should fit under the seat in front of you. If it doesn't look like backpack or small enough size, they will charge you for extra luggage. Every extra luggage costs you more than the price of the ticket itself. They nickel and dime for everything, but that's just because they are so cheap. If you have kids or luggage, then these airlines are NOT for you. Nevertheless, you should always check the fares on these airlines before you book anywhere else. Jetblue used to have "All you can Jet" sales in between 2010-2020, where you could buy an unlimited pass for $500 or o for 30 days, and then fly anywhere to anywhere within USA as many times as you wanted within those 30 days (i.e like a flight buffet for 30 days). They don't offer these anymore (at least I haven't seen any such promo since 2020). Best to avoid this airline unless you are desperate.
  • Frontier Airlines: They tried to merge with Spirit, but that deal didn't go thru. Now, Frontier is the only other low cost airline. Their fares, service, etc are similar to Spirit Airlines. They too nickel and dime for everything, so best to avoid. They also have also started "All you can fly pass" wich is as useless as their airline.
  • Southwest Airlines: Southwest is one of the best airlines with the best service. They charge you more, but they often have sales going on. Most of the times in off season, you can find flights for $100-$150 roundtrip in USA. They allow 2 checkins and 1 carryon for no extra charge. You can change flights without incurring any fees, though those new vouchers will expire within a year (southwest updated their policy as of July 2022, where these credits won't ever expire, so excellent deal for consumers). They also have few international destinations in Central and South America, here you can get great prices during off season sales. Check their website for all destinations. Their Giftcards are usually on 10% sale at Costco and Sams club. You can load up as many as you want, so it's effectively 10% discount on your tickets. Sometimes during Thanksgiving, memorial day, or random times of year they have 15%-25% sale off these GC. That is the only time that I try to pick these GC. Booking Southwest flights with credit card gives no additional advantage, as southwest anyway allows you to change flights for free. So, buy these GC in advance, if you anticipate a flight in near future (taxes + fees can be paid using GC too. Only caveat is you can use a max of 3 GC per passenger, and max 3 forms of payment, so you may need to use other form of payment as credit card. Southwest airlines is not included in any search result on internet, so you don't really see them listed on any travel portal website I don't know of any way to look up prices of southwest flights, except by going directly to southwest.com. (UPDATE: May 2024: They are now included in google.com/flights and shows up in their search too, but booking has to be done via southwest.com).
    • Southwest GC on sale:
    • Southwest Rapid Rewards (RR) membership: I would recommend to become a rapid rewards member. It's free to sign up. Few advantages of RR membership:
      • All your credits, vouchers can be stored in your account, otherwise the credits/vouchers remain attached to the reservation number, and it's hard to retrieve them in case you don't remember your old reservation number. You have to search thru countless emails.
      • You also get points for every flight you take. You earn points @ 6 points/dollar spent => 6% cashback for cheapest "Wanna Get away fares". For more expensive class, you earn 8, 10 or 12 points per dollar. Points are valued at around 1.3-1.4 cents per point. So, effectively you are getting around 10% cashback. That means for every 10 flights taken, you may earn 1 free flight. You can also get points by making other non-airline purchases. This 10% cashback is pretty generous, as even other big airlines give you 15% cash back at best.
      • You can also buy points if you are running short on them. They sell points for 3 cents per point. Many times they have sale on points, where you can buy them for 1.5 cents per point. One such sale is here: https://onemileatatime.com/deals/buy-southwest-rapid-rewards-points/
    • Southwest Vouchers: You get Vouchers from SW when they delay flights, cancel flights or for any other reason. These usually expire within a year. The trick to stop them from expiring is to use them to book any flight for that amount or slightly over the voucher amount. Use the Vouchers to pay for it, and then cancel the tickets immediately. Then you'll get the refund as flight credits which never expire (as per updated rules from 2022). You don't lose anything in the process, and can effectively use the credits anytme in future.
    •  Southwest flight search: If you are looking for lowest fares to all cities in USA from a particular city, there's a direct link where it shows this. I use this often to plan random trip to places, when it's going for < $100 roundtrip.
  • American Airlines, United, Delta and Misc: All these airlines also provide a lot of domestic flights, but their prices vary a lot. Also, their cheaper flight options have same kind of restrictions on luggage as Spirit/Frontier, etc (i.e allowing only a backpack for free, no refunds, etc).  Usually you will be able to find same iterinery flights for little bit more at Southwest. So, it's best to go with Southwest as it gives you much better value in terms of price and flexibility (i.e free cancellations, points, 2 baggage for free, etc).

 

International Flights from USA:

For International flights, there's no single option. Off season, you may get crazy deals for flying to the other side of the globe for $700 (i.e India, Thailand, etc), or $200 for flying to Europe. Many travel companies offer decent packages for traveling to other countries which include hotels, flights as well as entrance tickets to many of the attractions. Groupon is usually a good place to start your search for such vacation packages. Few good airlines to fly to India are KLM, Delta, Emirates, Qatar, Lufthansa, British Airways, etc.

  •  International destinations: Destinations like Cuba, Puerto Rico, Mexico, etc have deals from time to time where you can get flight tickets for < $200 roundtrip on AA, delta, etc. Look for those in google.com/flights.

Links for some cheap flights:

Slickdeals link is one of the best places to see if there's anything being given out for cheap. Of course they are from a specific city to anther specific city, so this is mostly for people who are kust looking to go anywhere anytime.

https://slickdeals.net/travel-deals/

 

 

GC DEALS:

 

Southwest $500 GC deals on costco.com and samsclub.com :

Southwest GC deal for 10% off is always valid at these 2 discount stores. Deals for > 10% come few times ayear. During Thanksgiving, Christmas, you may get the GC for 20% off. Below are the deals:

 

 

 

2024:

 

 

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03/09/2024: Southwest $500 GC for $430 on costco.com : expires 03/10/2024 

Same deal as last time on costco.

https://slickdeals.net/f/17342835-southwest-airlines-500-e-gift-card-430-from-costco

 

 

 

2023:

 

 

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05/27/2023: Southwest $500 GC for $430 on costco.com : expires 05/28/2023 

Same deal as last time on costco.

https://www.doctorofcredit.com/costco-com-500-southwest-egiftcard-for-429-99-limit-2/

 

 

04/12/2023: Cheap ticket from USA to India 

Roundtrip from New York to New Delhi, India on American Airlines for $650 for travel in Feb 2023. Similar to  a deal from 2022 from San Francisco to New Delhi on Singapore Airlines.

https://slickdeals.net/f/16571627-american-airlines-round-trip-nonstop-flight-from-new-york-ny-to-new-delhi-india-648-travel-february-2024-select-dates?src=frontpage

 

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03/14/2023: Southwest: 20% Off Points Bookings With Promo Code SAVE20NOW => expires 03/16/2023

You get 20% off when booking with points, when traveling by May 24, 2023. Cancel and re book for existing flights, if fares are the same or lower.

https://www.doctorofcredit.com/southwest-20-off-points-bookings-with-promo-code-save20now/

 

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03/03/2023: Southwest $500 GC for $430 on costco.com : expires 03/05/2023 

Usually these GC go for $450, so you are getting extra $20 or extra 4% discount. Limit 2 per account. If you are frequent SW traveler and traveling in next few months, you may want to haord up. Otherwise not worth it, as that $500 is anyway yielding 5% yearly in bank accounts, so extra 4% is more or less a washout.

https://www.doctorofcredit.com/costco-com-500-southwest-egiftcard-for-429-99-limit-2/

 

 

 

2022:

 

 

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10/26/2022: Frontier Airlines launches "all you can Fly": 

Frontier Airlines  announced "all you can fly" pass similar to what we had seen for JetBlue. But this is 1 year pass compared to 1 month pass for JetBlue. Details are unknown, but might be a good deal who can take off from work during weekdays.

https://www.doctorofcredit.com/frontier-to-launch-all-you-can-fly-gowild-pass/

UPDATE: One important detail that I found id that flight is only confirmed a day before departure, so basically you are on standby all the time on all the flights. So, basically renders this pass useless for any trip, as you can't plan anything, and risk getting stuck in a foreign city with unlimited expenses.

 

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09/26/2022: Few cheap air tickets to Europe from USA: 

Jan-Mar of any year is very low on air travel, and so deals abound. Here are few:

Roundtrip Newark, New Jersey to Barcelona, Spain for $300:

https://slickdeals.net/f/16047343-roundtrip-flight-newark-nj-ewr-to-barcelona-spain-bcn-298-travel-january-may-2023?src=frontpage

 

 

09/08/2022: Cheap ticket from USA to India 

Roundtrip San Franciso, California to New Delhi, India on Singapore Airlines for $700 for travel between March 2023 to May 2023:

https://slickdeals.net/f/16058476-san-francisco-to-new-delhi-india-687-rt-airfares-on-5-singapore-airlines-with-2-free-checked-bags-flexible-ticket-travel-march-may-2023

 

 

09/07/2022: Free Companion ticket when booking with Southwest: Expires 09/08/2022 

This offer comes about 1-2 times a year. You get a free companion pass for traveling between 4th Jan, 2023 and 4th Mar, 2023. However, you need to book your current flight by 8th September, 2022 for travel by 17th November, 2022, in order to get the companion pass. Companion pass will be issued on Jan 4th, 2023, so you can book your 2023 flight only after that date.

https://www.doctorofcredit.com/southwest-get-2-months-companion-pass-when-you-fly-once-by-11-17-22/