Purchase round trip airline tickets for you and those traveling with you one at a time to take advantage of reduced fares. Most airlines only offer the cheapest coach fares on a limited number of seats which round trip book systems may ignore.
When you shop for multiple tickets, and there aren??t enough seats available at the lowest ticket price, the reservation system automatically kicks bookings up to the next price level.
On a recent search for flights from Dallas to Frankfurt for a July trip, Mr. Seaney turned up a round-trip ticket at www.americanairlines.com for $1,431. When he searched for multiple tickets, the lowest ticket price jumped to $1,536.
To make sure that you are in fact getting the best deal follow this search routine based from the least to most amount of planning time available. Start by opening 3 Internet browser windows.
- Window 1: Do a FareCompare Search – Gives you a an idea of the lowest fares being offered by the airlines.
- Window 2: Look For Round Trip Flights – Based on the FareCompare results go directly to the website of the airline with the lowest prices.
- Window 3: Get A Price By Booking Each Leg Separately – If you’ve got more than 1 layover it might be cheaper to do purchase a round trip ticket for some legs of the trip. Play around with you search options.
- Call The Airline: Often the agents on the phone can find you the lowest rates per flight as they open up, or rearrange seats to get you a better deal. Call during non-peak hours to save some time.
The potential problem is that you’ll be able to book some of your tickets but not the rest if the flight is sold out. First search to make sure that flights are available for all legs of your trip before purchasing any tickets, especially if you’re traveling in a group of more than two people.
Once you buy your tickets stay automatically notifed of price drops and refunds with Yapta, which was relaunched as a full-fledged free website earlier this week.
