How To: Fly for less when your dates are flexible

The "Bargain Hunter" from www.travelsupermarket.com is another great tool for finding cheap flights.


In this example I have selected Birmingham as my preferred departure point, but note the tick box next to this which I have ticked to show nearby airports as well. Then I have selected Spain and June, and said I want to go for a week, but left everything else open.



Back come the results and we are looking good, with the cheapest price coming in at £28.59 return, including tax. These prices are not "real" because travel supermarket haven't gone out to the airlines yet, but they have a good chance of being real because they show the last results that came back from the airline. You can see under the price it says this was obtained 1 day and 5 hours ago.

So the next task is to make sure it's still true, by clicking on the "Get Updated Quote" button.

And there it is, confirmed! When you follow the site link it was one of Ryanair's famous 1p flights each way, the bulk of the price was tax. So here is a great way to find those travel bargains. Now don't forget to avois Ryanair's priority boarding charge - see http://realtravelagent.blogspot.com/2007/03/priority-boarding-on-ryanair-you-dont.html

Who Flies From Where?

While it's pretty easy to find the route maps from low-cost carriers and see where they fly from, it's possible to miss out on possibilities from some of the smaller airlines, especially with new routes. So I was impressed when I found a site called Flightmapping.com on the travelrants blog. You can choose either your departure or arrival airport and see who flies which routes. Very quick and simple.

How To: Fly for Less (when your dates are fixed)

There are lots of circumstances where we look for a cheap flight. In this "how to" I am looking at the situation where you have a week off work, you want to get away, but you don't have a lot of cash. If this sounds familiar - read on.

This is a worked example, with screenshots to show how it can be done. I have a week's holiday in June, so I start by putting the dates into Skyscanner.net


My priority at this time is to find something cheap, so I am not going to specify either a departure airport or a destination, so as to give me the maximum no. of possibilities. Back come the results for a week from June 9th (top right of the screen) and they are looking encouraging:



Ireland is the cheapest option, but I want to go further afield with more promise of sunshine. I decide Spain looks my favourite on this list and click on it to see my choices. That gives me a screen like this:


Madrid is the cheapest option, but I was looking for a bit of sea and sun, so I scan down the list. I choose Murcia as an airport that is convenient for a beach holiday and not too expensive
The next screen takes me to the flight and airline options:

OK, Stansted is not the nmost convenient airport for me, but since it is over £50 cheaper than the next option I am willing to drive there. Clicking "next" will show me the flights:


The first thing to notice is the line near the top of the screen that these prices include taxes and charges. Bet you were expecting they would be additional.

So I can go off on my jollies in June, to a hot seaside in Spain, for a total cost of £52.33. Pretty good eh?

Now by the time you read this prices will have changed, of course. But if you go through the whole process you should be able to find something equally appealing.

Priority Boarding on Ryanair - You don't have to pay - part two

Remember it's a game, and Ryanair set the rules. But you can become a good player, with practice. Select no bags, and the screen looks like this. Note the charge highlighted in red, but also the "Remove" which has materialised in small type below. Click on that and your charge will disappear. While you are at it, you may want to remove the insurance charge too.


The net result is your screen ends up with no additional charges. Happy Travelling!

Priority Boarding on Ryanair - You don't have to pay!

Lots of discussion on this one but it's all part of the game. Ryanair offer tickets for as little as 1p (and yes they are real - I just picked a route and two dates at random and they were both 1p flights), and then try and take enough money to make a profit out of you by other means. The latest trick is to charge you for priorty boarding automatically if you choose not to pay to check a bag.

Your mission is to not pay for as many extras as possible. You can escape this charge, but it certainly isn't obvious how. Let's look at the booking screen:

Your only options are to choose one or more bags, and pay for them, or choose no bags and pay for priority boarding. Oh dear.

Three types of airline

Once it was easy. Scheduled airlines like Air France and British Airways had different classes, but even economy was better than charter, which had no legroom and no free drinks. then came the low-cost airlines, which didn't even have food service, but no-one cared because they offered the cheapest tickets.

But this year I have flown to Palma, Mallorca, with Iberia, the Spanish national airline, for less than any of the low-cost carriers were quoting. And to the caribbean with First Choice, a charter airline that offers a minimum of 33" seat pitch. That's two inches more than BA or Virgin, and four inches more than a typical charter. On a nine-hour flight, that's a lot of inches.

The moral of the story is to look at what you're getting rather than the packaging it comes in.

The crazy world of air fare pricing, and how to get to Madeira cheaply

"Why can't I get a cheap fare to Madeira?" was this morning's question.

To answer this I have to explain that there are three types of airline - scheduled e.g. BA, low-cost e.g. Ryanair, and charter e.g. Monarch. Getting cheap fares depends on knowing what kind of airline you are dealing with. Low-cost is the easiest, as usually the earlier you book the better prices are available. Scheduled airlines are all connected to GDS's, which means you can check them out via sites like Expedia. (I'll do a note on how to get the best prices out of Expedia some other time). Charter airlines typically run weekly turn-rounds, and start with the price they hope to get. The time to get discounts on charters is close to departure, when they realise it's not going to fill, and they start cutting the price.

So coming back to Madeira, low cost airlines don't go there. It's too far and they make their money by turning planes round very quickly. Most scheduled carriers don't go there, only TAP (Air Portugal) which means no price competition. And the charters which fly holiday traffic to the island try not to discount until very close to departure.

All of which is interesting, but my questioner wants to go to Madeira for as little money as possible. To which the answer is "reader offers". Charter airlines fly the same no. of seats each week, and they know there are times when they struggle to fill them. rather than reduce the price to the public, they wholesale them cheaply to reader offer companies who take big ads in newspapers saying things like "Madeira from only £199, including 7 nights in a 3* hotel. " If you are reading this because you want to go to Madeira then to save you looking at lots of newspapers, you can call the company that puts the offers together and ask them what they currently have. Atlantic Holidays, 01452 381888. Happy Holidays!

Low cost airline scams

OK scams is a bit harsh. Let's call it "ways they take more money off you without increasing the so-called price". Easyjet are now doing Speedy Boarding, while Ryanair have Priority Boarding. What they are doing is selling the front of the queue to get on the plane.

I tested Speedy Boarding this week on an Easyjet flight with mixed results. At Bristol they called Speedy Boarders to the gate while the departure board was showing 20 minutes top boarding (and me on the other side of the terminal). Within seconds they had called normal boarding and there was no way through the queue. £5 wasted. At Toulouse I was by the gate when they called Speedy boarding, but my boarding pass didn't show I was entitled to it. I had the booking email ready and got a Gallic shrug and permission to board. Which in turn meant I got an exit seat and some extra legroom. So £2.50 well spent (why the difference in price - I don't know).

On balance then Speedy Boarding is one to use with care. If there is a bus to the plane all it will get you is early boarding onto the bus, which is no help at all. But on balance I can't begrudge them another way of making money. The total cost for two of us was £113. Some friends flew to Toulouse 13 years ago and got a 2-for-1 deal of £180. And that was before airport tax.