Five Practical Tips on How to Fly Well, Safely and Often

Notice I didn’t say cheap. Cheap is for twenty year old back-packers and nomadic unemployed bloggers. Cheap is not for a senior solo female traveler who thinks the journey is a very important part of traveling to the destination. Or at least has its profound effects.

Say no to airline hop-scotch, before-dawn over-sold flights from out of the way regional airports. Be airfare wise but not trip foolish. Based on solid research with travel agents, tour companies, airline reps and other travelers, here are my tips verified and myths debunked about airline fares.

Most of What You Hear Isn’t True

Airfare fares are not lower on Tuesdays. It may happen occasionally but as a response to passenger demand, seasonal pressures, fuel prices, the competitive environment based on destination and seat supply, holiday travel, peak season travel. All of these variables are factored into the airline’s cosmic algorithms. And no, searching incognito will not get you a better deal. You can, however, shop well and shop smart.

Be Flexible

If you want to go to Paris in the springtime, guess what? So does everyone else. Can you travel on a “shoulder season” in the off-peak time? The less flexible you can be, the more expensive the ticket. Prices are cheaper if you fly on or after a major holiday. Fridays and Mondays are most expensive because that’s when business travelers fly.

When planning a trip, open Google flights and put in your departure and arrival cities. Expand the calendar view on the date field to see range of fares over a two month period. A quick comparison of tickets from Charlotte, North Carolina to Naples, Italy illustrates the range in pricing. Round-trip tickets double or halve depending on the date. And you can look farther out depending on your flexibility.

Spin the Destination Wheel

On a recent trip I met a professor and avid traveler from Boston who chose destinations based on the best airfare and hotel deals he could find. Buenos Aires? Calgary? Jerusalem? He’d go if the price was right…which was how we ended up in Dublin in January. He used an app called Skyscanner. Next stop, Patagonia! Great package. That’s one way to do it!

I prefer GoogleTravel and I also cross check with Orbitz but there are lots of other aggregators who bundle air/hotel/auto rental and offer package deals. In fact, there’s an amazing deal offered for some new destination every day.

Check Out the Inter and Intra Airline Options

I should do this more often for intra and inter-country airfare and, in fact, it’s my new travel writer’s resolution. Here’s a list with links ( courtesy of another travel blogger, Nomadic Matt, who is kind of the Academy Award winner in his category…)

Matt advises if you aren’t sure which budget airlines fly where, visit your departure airport’s website to get a list of airlines that fly there.

Make sure to read the fine print since the smaller airlines sometimes charge for carry-ons, boarding passes and tack on annoying surcharges which rapidly inflate the ticket prices. Add it all up, then compare. I personally like the ambiance and customer service offered by the regional carriers and use them when they make sense.

Always Fly Direct When Possible

Direct will never be the cheapest option, but at our age, it’s the best one. Direct flights reduce the chances for lost luggage, flight delays, missed connections, trip interruptions and flying discomfort. Direct flights increase your pre-trip peace of mind, multi-flight airport logistics and time spent on the ground. How often do you plan to visit Nairobi? Jaipur? Stockholm?

Okay, fly direct or select shortest duration flights.

Don’t Mix and Match Airlines

If you just can’t stand it and you want to see what a piecemeal, delay possibility ridden trip you can plan, use this website Kiwi.com and plug in your destinations. Yes, you can fly multiple carriers and fly cheaper. Of course you can. And you can navigate a dozen or so terminals at international airports where you don’t speak the language and can’t ask for help and then you can hand over your luggage to an endless, imaginary luggage link which might, on a good day, deliver your checked baggage to the same continent as the one where you had hoped to travel.

NO.

Don’t.

Yes, all of those weird get-on, get-off tricks are cute and supposedly are cheaper. But they are fraught with peril. Resist.

Fly direct when you can, Shortest duration. Use inter-intra country regionals when an option. Shop smart.

There. Now GO!