1) Oakland -> Copenhagen
2) Copenhagen -> Athens
3) Crete -> Rome
4) Lisbon -> Paris
5) Paris -> Oakland
Take a guess at how much those tickets cost in total. Go ahead! Guess!
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
The answer? $922.70.
1) Oakland -> Copenhagen ($270)
2) Copenhagen -> Athens ($140)
3) Crete -> Rome ($85)
4) Lisbon -> Paris ($30)
5) Paris -> Oakland ($397.70)
There are a ton of flight hackers out there. Following their methods results in free business class flights and all sorts of other perks. It's pretty cool. It's definitely worth checking out their resources for getting miles fast.
The set back to those methods is that it takes some time and planning. My life is lived a little bit more last minute at the moment. Up until now I have also been a college student spending virtually no money, so the whole credit card thing wasn't super appealing. However, this doesn't mean I have to miss out on flight deals! In the end it just comes down to research, research, research.
Kayak.com is my very best friend. It provides a quick way to look at every possible flight combination, and I mean every combination. I'm currently in the Sacramento, Ca region, so I check flights out of Sacramento, Oakland, and San Francisco. I sometimes even check flights out of LA. I see how each airport compares to each of the destinations I have in mind. This is how I come up with a general idea or baseline as to what to expect budget-wise. My original plan was to fly into Lisbon, Portugal and then fly home from Athens, Greece. That came in around $1,300-$1,600.
From there, I threw my original plan out the window. I've found that you can save a lot of money if you let the flights dictate your plan rather than letting your plan dictate your flights. I started looking into discount airlines. Norwegian now flies out of the United States. I looked at their destinations out of Oakland and saw that Copenhagen was an option. Copenhagen was not on my radar at all previous to this, but it's certainly somewhere I'd like to go (hurray for my ancestors!). Similarly, I found a great flight out of Paris (in fact, I would have saved $100 if I'd bought that ticket right when I found it instead of a few weeks later). From there, I just waited for sales on flights within Europe. I checked often (on kayak.com) and snatched up good deals when I found them. I also always check the airline's website to make sure I can't get a better deal by buying from them directly rather than through Kayak or one of it's partners. I also check multiple dates for every combination of flights I'm looking at. Checking all these different options is very time consuming. However, through this process I spent $400-$700 less on five flights than I would have on two flights.
The one set back to "discount" airlines is that you pay for everything. You pay to choose your seat, you pay for any luggage, you pay for meals, etc etc. I didn't spend any extra money. This means my seat will be randomly assigned, I will not get any meals, and I can only carry on a 22 lb backpack. In the end, I was fine with these tradeoffs in order to save the money!
This kind of process works better than I think most people realize. It was through this process that I found the $15 flight to New York I referred to last post. It was also through this process that I found cheap flights to Mexico City, Dominican Republic, and Hawaii (we're talking like $300 bucks round trip!) last summer. Because I'm open to going just about anywhere, it's easy to let the cheap flights dictate my travel.
In the end, I don't have any magic solutions to offer! Research and flexibility can land you some great deals.
No comments:
Post a Comment