You don’t have to have been traveling very long to know that airfares can go up and down like an elevator at quitting time. And you pretty much know that you want to buy at the bottom floor, not the penthouse prices. Sure, you could spend hours a day scouring travel websites the way technical stock traders scour the markets, but there’s an easier way: Sign up for a few of the free airfare alert systems that keep track for you.
I alluded to these in an earlier column, but here are some more detailed suggestions. The most useful airfare alert systems are the ones that monitor specific trips you have in mind and let you know when fares drop on routes you select. Among the better choices:
Airfarewatchdog.com is probably the most comprehensive and offers airport-to-airport email alerts whenever it spots an especially good fare deal. If you travel to/from a multi-airport metro area, you have to enter the airport-airport links individually - a minor annoyance. Airfare watchdog is unique in that (1) its airfare searches employ actual people as well as computers, (2) alerts cover special deals based on promotional codes that most other alerts miss, and (3) it includes Southwest, which is not covered by other alert systems based purely on computer input. In case you’re still wondering where to travel, Airfarewatchdog also issues “anywhere that’s cheap” fare bulletins to/from your base city. Disclosure: Airfarewatchdog is affiliated with SmarterTravel, a travel resource to which I contribute and which posts these columns. Enroll on the home page; you can also follow on Facebook.
Independently of Airfarewatchdog, SmarterTravel.com provides daily or weekly email bulletins covering hotels, car rentals and packages, as well as airfare deals. You can also sign up for daily to weekly “Departure City Fare Alerts” from your home airport and for periodic “City to City Route Alerts” on individual trips. Enroll on the home page. FareCompare.com offers similar reports.
Some big online travel agencies and metasearch engines provide similar periodic airfare sale and fare change bulletins. Many also offer the same information through some combination of Facebook and Twitter linkages.
Many domestic and international airlines offer some combination of email, Facebook and Twitter deal updates; many also provide apps for smart mobile devices. If Southwest Airlines is in your orbit, install its “Ding” feature that automatically sends fare change information to your computer via RSS or the corresponding iPhone application. Sign up for as many other lines as you might want to travel - if you don’t mind a big jump in your email volume.
No matter which bulletins you choose, keep in mind the “usual suspect” strategies for minimizing airfares:
To/from multi-airport cities, check all the airports.
To/from smaller cities, check nearby larger cities where fares may be more competitive.
If you’re flexible, look several days before/after your preferred trip dates for better deals. Many online travel agencies and airline websites allow for flexible date searches.
Don’t forget about traditional travel agents, who can track deals for you.
Typically, these sources are most useful for tracking airfares before you buy. Yapta.com, among others, also features notification of a price drop on a ticket you’ve already bought. This may not be that useful. On most lines, a fare would have to drop $200 to $300 before you could benefit by re-ticketing, but it might be useful on Southwest, which doesn’t impose change fees.
Send email to Ed Perkins at eperkins@mind.net
Travel, Pages 48 on 02/16/2014