Here’s a tip that’s slightly off topic. If you are flying within the EU, to the EU, or from the EU know your rights, how to claim compensation and how much compensation you should receive. The rules and amounts are governed by an EU directive and not by the airlines themselves, some of whom are very good at automatically notifying passengers (EasyJet) and some who aren’t so good and either keep quiet. or, make it difficult.
I always use a VPN connection along with a web browser’s private mode (Chrome Incognito or Edge Private), so that there ano cookies left behind to record my visit to a travel website.
Airlines have been using various ‘modeling’ stategies to set fares for a long time - based on dates of travel, special events in locations, etc. These calculations used to be done by the Revenue Management (or some similar name) dept. It wasn’t really changing fares, but adjusting the number of tickets in each of the fare classes. The change is that AI is likely making airlines (or even retail sites like Amazon or Temu) better at maximizing profits (and prices).
For example - in the US flying on T’giving day has historically been a real bargain and depending on your timing you can still make a later afternoon T’giving day dinner at your destination. Conversely, fares on the Sunday after T’giving have always been really high (but if you played it right, that Sunday was a great day to get paid for a voluntary bump - 1 year flying BOS-MSP I took 3 bumps for about $1500 total and still got home Sunday night).
Or - for the Consumer Electronics show in Las Vegas in Jan, Delta would add non-stop LAS-ICN-LAS flights for a day or 2 at the beginning and end of the CES. But if you flew the reverse routing - LAS-ICN at the beginning of the show and ICN-LAS at the end there were some amazingly cheap fares. A few years back I flew business class LAS-ICN-LAS for a week for about $1200. Delta had to get the plane to ICN so it could charge very high fares for the folks coming to the CES. As I recall, my flights over and back were filled with DL employees flying on passes since there was a lot of availability. (Not that mid-Jan is a great time to visit Seoul - bitterly cold!)
Delta actually noted on an investor call that it would be using AI in its dynamic pricing model and prompted a lot of discussion and even congressional attention. (Search google for dynamic airline pricing.)
And a bit more - if you book your flight far in advance, check back every few weeks to see if the fare has changed. In the US for most airlines (at least the big 4), you can change to the lower fare and get a credit back that you can use for year. I’ve had prices go down by about 20% or as much $100 or the number of FF miles required drop by 10,000. Delta makes this easy, open your trip on the web site, click on the ‘change or add flights button’ and then search without changing anything. You will see the available flights with the + or - fares shown.
This is a really good idea for when we’re able to be flexible on dates - find a major event and travel in the opposite direction.
I often travel on Tuesday too, it’s true that flights are often cheaper then.
So much wisdom here, thanks everyone!
day of the week has been proven false time and time again.
For international travel, I usually book flights with points and only pay the taxes. Always book with the airline. If there’s an issue with the flight and it was booked through 3rd Party (Kayak, Expedia…) you will be left to deal with that company and NOT the airline. (same for hotels). Int’l flights can be found for less than 20K points. You can find Biz class for 50K points - sometimes less!
Oh, Tomi, you are really getting into the weeds now, my friend. ![]()
But you are correct. There are some crazy smart strategies if you’re willing to spend the time at the PC running the routes & knowing that’s going on where and when.
I was going to mention the AI and dynamic pricing stuff too, but tbh it’s hard to say how that’s all going to play out. Going to have to wait and see.
Will also be interesting to see what happens now that they’re yanking out coach seats and adding so many premium economy & biz class seats in their place.
“It’s a mystery,” as they say… ![]()
I agree that booking on a particular day of the week is a fallacy, yes. That’s been the case for ages.
FLYING on a particular day often has impact, however — unless there is a convention or major event going on.
Interestingly, I literally just stumbled on this newish browser extension to GoogleFlights, called PointsPath. It lets you compare the cost of flights in $ vs points at the same time.
Haven’t personally tried it yet, but there are several write-ups and tutorials on it, like this one from ThePointsGuy:
@toml, thank you for sharing. Appreciated. Interesting tool. Will experiment.
I am constantly reminded of the remarkably diversity within the housesit community - in terms of situations, preferences and usage.
@MerryPuppins, +1 for this. Concurrent with international housesitting then we’ve changed our credit cards, travel technology, insurance and all sorts to optimize the experience. Our credit cards now offer 0% fx fees, lots insurance/benefits and free airport lounges. Handy.
I always check the sites listing error fare and fuel dump flights first (e.g., fly4free DOT com or secretflying DOT com). If I don´t find anything interesting there, I continue my search with Skyscanner. Occasionally, I also use a matrix
@ElsieDownie, you travel with an old mobile phone in order to secure lower cost airplane tickets? Oh boy
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I’m going to try dig out an old phone (if have one) and repeat your experiment. Alas not possible for few months. But will try!
I have an old mobile phone. I don’t just travel with it. It’s my one and only.
If you haven’t already, get open an account with a bank that doesn’t charge transaction fees for transactions in any ATM.
In the US, both Schwab and Fidelity brokerages offer ATM cards with no surcharges for remote ATM transactions and reimburse the fees charged by the other banks. Not sure about Fidelity but foreign exchange rates with Schwab are very good and no % add-on for international transactions.
For those outside US, we’d encourage consider Wise - a large UK fintech. Prepaid, multi-currency visa debit card. Great fx rates (massively better than most bank credit cards). Zero fees to withdrawal local currency at international ATMs, subject to a maximum amount per month. ApplePay, etc.
https://wise.com
Perhaps not a direct response to your question, but yesterday I secured a sit in Bangor Northern Ireland, that wrapped neatly around another sit in Carrickfergus. I was able to book a return Edinburgh to Belfast flight for just £45 with Easyjet on their own site. I am delighted at that price. Hand luggage only, as I will have access to a washing machine on both sits.
@GotYourBack Love my Wise card and wholeheartedly second you in recommending Wise.
Sorry ladies, imho no card beats Revolut I´ve been using the card since the very beginning (10 years?), checking newcomers from time to time, and thus far I stick with Revolut. They are still the best. ![]()