How to travel in the front, for Greyhound prices
[QUOTE=ComeOnDown]I consider his inputs on mileage programs very useful and relevant. In fact I have printouts of some of his posts which serves as references for me whenever I get confused with all these mileage program lingo.[/QUOTE]Well, when I'm sitting around with nothing to do, I don't mind looking for some travel shortcuts, and explaining them a bit. 8 years ago, I hardly knew a thing, but I feel I'm proficient now.
The thing is, there are so many ways to backdoor special deals, that you'll only know about if you read [url]www.flyertalk.com[/url] a lot, and investigate things. It also helps to have friends who figure out some of these deals.;)
There was recently a small thread on Flyertalk about getting Delta miles for 1800flowers. Com purchases. They gave you a 2500 mile bonus on each purchase, if you entered a special code. 2500 miles is worth about $50 alone, so if you could buy some cheap items, and do it again, and again, you could have enough miles for a free biz class flight (and a lot of little 1800flowers trinkets)
After you figured the bonuses, plus cash back on your credit card you used to purchase these items, your cash outlay was about $700 for a Biz class ticket from the US to Argentina. Plus you now have 35 of these little gift bags to give out to the chicas for free! Or donate them to charity, and get a tax write off for $700! You don't get any miles for flying, but it's a great deal, if you know where to find it, and where to jump in on it.
UA Weekend Fares IAD-EZE $475+
Just got an email for United Airlines for a special weekend rate on United from Washington DC. Leave Jan. 28-31, return Feb. 4-Feb. 7. Add taxes, but still a good deal, for a quick trip down.
It might be the last time I use one
[QUOTE=Jaimito Cartero]Not very cheap, eh?
I think if I find another batch of cheap business class fares to EZE, I'll have free pussy for all my next trip! $1000 for coach to EZE is pretty bad.[/QUOTE]615 bucks and it's standby. Two advantages to a buddy pass, if there is an open business seat then I can sit there, second is flexibility. If I decide to stay extra day no problem.
When I first started going to BsAs and would take friends on my passes when I worked for UAL it was around 350 round trip, now that was a bargain. With 600-800 RT fairly common with shopping I think in the future I will travel coach and confirmed.
With your ability to find fares and my insider knowledge of airlines. Hmm something to think about.
Tip #3 How to get there with money left for chicas
Pricing of tickets is rather a dark art. As Salv pointed out, you can run a price search at 1pm, and then do the same thing an hour later, and you'll get big differences in prices.
If the time you're heading somewhere is a busy time, you may pay 2-3 times more money. Take Sydney for example. He paid huge bucks to go EZE to the Dominican Republic, because he wanted to go at a busy time. I'm not sure how far out he bought tickets, but buying too far in advance, or too close to departure can hurt you big time.
The sweet spot for normal tickets (Not to be confused with Jumbo / mistake or Airline wars) is 2-6 months before your flight. If you see a good deal, jump on it, even if it's not in this time frame.
You might also want to keep track of how prices are for a certain route. If you want IAH-EZE, and there is a sale every March, then hang out until March to get your ticket.
Jumbo / Mistake fares. These are when someone leaves a zero off a fare, or prices the ticket in Pesos instead of Dollars, so it's $99 to fly instead of $990. These do not usually last very long, so whip your credit card out, and buy some. My favorite is business class flights. I found a EZE-NYC ticket last May, and although I'm not in NYC, I saw the price seemed a bit low, so I checked it out. Only after checking out the fare class, did I realize that it was a business class ticket for only $450 round trip plus tax. Much better than the $6500 price they normally charge.
This fare only lasted a few hours after I posted it, possibly because an asshole called up the airline to ask them questions about the fare. If you think you've got one of these fares, don't call the airlines!
If you're an opportunity flyer, like I am, you just want the cheapest flight, and the best seat possible. While 30% of my flights will be in coach this year, I like the biz class or first class seat for my big ass. I just don't want to pay $5000 for it.
If you can go whenever you want, you'll save a lot of money. To find the cheapest fares [B]currently[/B] being offered, use Zuji. Com at the link below:
[url]http://www.zuji.com/web/content/splash_index.html[/url]
Click on the "flexible dates", and enter your cities. This is a sister site to Travelocity, but the Travelocity site no longer lets you search for international tickets with flexible dates. Sometimes you may get pricing in Singapore dollars, and many flights might be listed, but don't work when you try to select dates. This is pretty normal. You can also use:
[url]http://matrix.itasoftware.com/cvg/dispatch/[/url]
This is ITA, which is a very nice way to search for tickets, and you won't get as many phantom fares. You can only search for 30 days using the normal interface, though.
So, if you're a cheap sucker, or just want to spend your money on food and chicas, what do you do?
Find airlines that give their best flyers free upgrades to business class. Many airlines have upgrade certificates (Usually referred to as SWU, System Wide Upgrades) that you can use on a flight. Things have tightened up lately, and often you can only use them if you buy a higher coach fare, and then use miles, or one of the SWU's. AA and I think CO now also have Co-pays of hundreds of dollars you pay in addition.
If you're willing to fly on a plane that makes more stops, I'd recommend Copa, as they give free upgrades to Continental Airline elite (they share the same elite program) and even upgrade Northwest Airline elites a day or two before the flight. You do end up stopping in Panama City, but it's not a bad break.
How else to fly in the front? I briefly mentioned using miles to upgrade. This can work great with some airlines, and not at all, with others. Many airlines now require you to be one of their elite members (usually flying 25k a year) to even use them.
One secret that often saves me big bucks is to check how much fares are when they originate in the city I'm flying to. That's how I found my Delta Biz class Jumbo out of EZE. The fare was only good for flights departing out of EZE. Some people would ignore it, since how would it work if they're not in EZE?
It's simple, you either buy a one way ticket, or you nest a round trip ticket out of the US, either purchased, or using frequent flyer miles.
So, you spend $1000 for a Feb. 1st IAH-EZE ticket. You then have 2 round trips EZE-IAH that you found for $400. You spread them out over the year, so that you get 3 trips for only $1800, instead of $3000. This is what the flights would look like:
CO IAH-EZE ($1000) Feb. 1st.
DL EZE-ATL-IAH ($400) Feb. 18
DL IAH-ATL-EZE ($0 return portion) May 1
DL EZE-ATL-IAH ($400) May 20
DL IAH-ATL-EZE ($0 return) September 1
CO EZE-IAH ($0 return) September 24
So you get three nice trips, and don't spend too much money. Now, all the pricing given here is made up. $400 fares don't happen that often, and you may not see one for years. But if you never check the pricing going the other way, you'll certainly never find the deals.
Just by flying these routes, you have enough miles to elite, about 30,000 miles. If you were a Platinum already, you'd get about 70,000 miles, or even 80,000 miles if you didn't fly DL (DL only awards 100% max miles for standard tickets, instead of 125% like CO and NW do) You're very close to a free business class ticket from just these three flights. Say you take one more flight, and spend $2500 total. You now can get a free biz class ticket, having invested only half the amount a normal ticket would cost!
I've found a few sub $400 + tax flights to EZE over the last few years. Many were when a new airlines started a route, such as Delta, or when other airlines get into wars with new entrants, or are just trying to hurt a competitor. These wars are some of the most beautiful things you've ever seen. Better than finding a $100 bill on the ground in front of Exedra.
You can see a fare get chopped in half in 10 minutes, and then be back to where it was an hour later. Don't dawdle on these fares, they evaporate quick.
One of the best ways to find out about these fluctuations is to set up a [url]www.farecompare.com[/url] fare alert. You can have it email you every time the fare drops a certain amount. I recommending setting alerts to and from EZE, so you can see all the deals. Also, sometimes Delta will have a screaming deal out of Houston, and Continental will attack back, and have kick ass prices from Atlanta.
For that reason, I would always put all hub cities into your search, as it may be worth paying $100-$200 to fly somewhere to get $400 fares to EZE.
CO hubs: IAH, EWR
DL hubs: ATL, SLC, CVG
UA hubs: DEN, ORD
AA hubs: DFW, MIA
There are other hubs for these, but those are the major ones, I think. A word of caution about Farecompare. It's a great site, but scans all the pricing for possible sales. It does not figure out a lot of the fuel surcharges that airlines are now sneaking in. AA is probably the worst US airline for this, as they can easily add $200 to the fare, instead of $60-$80 for most airlines. So, if you see an AA fare for $400, don't wet your pants yet.
Farecompare also sends you alert as soon as the fare is released, but that doesn't mean it's in the computer of the airlines/travel agencies yet. Sometimes it might take hours before it's loaded into everything. Here's an alert that I just got from Farecompare:
[B]Buenos Aires, AR Chicago from $679 down $40[/B]
[url]http://www.farecompare.com/search/year-alerts.html?departure=BUE&destination=CHI[/url]
Looking quickly, I find that it's a Delta flight. Going the opposite way, the cheapest fare is a US/UA codeshare for $150 more. The Delta flight might not even be available, so you always have to do some works to make sure the the deal is real. I clicked on a couple of days in April, but come back with nothing less than $1000 using Farecompare. Time to switch to ITA and see if it has anything better. $925 is the lowest I find.
Always check the airline's website first, and then Expedia, Orbitz, Travelocity, etc too. When a fare is pulled on the airlines own site, it may still be in the system for awhile at the other sites.
Check the major gateway cities: LAX, SFO, IAH, ORD, DFW, MIA, IAD, DCA, EWR, JFK, ATL, DEN, SLC, DTW, MSP. Most of the good fares are going to be from one of these hubs.
That's all for tonight, folks!
