How to find cheaper airfare

Oil prices and global instability is leading to higher travel prices. But you can fight back and find cheaper airfare.

A few weeks ago, I wrote about how to respond to an oil price shock. In it, I wrote that it wasn’t a good idea to panic buy (or sell), but that it was probably a good idea to purchase any air travel that you might have coming up. This is because airlines often have a delay between when oil prices go up and when they raise airfares.

Well, it turns out that that isn’t the case anymore.

I don’t know about you, but I’m getting tired of all this winning.

Anyway, we need to talk about how to find cheaper airfare, if that’s even possible anymore.

Hedging no more

Airlines used to do something called “fuel hedging”, basically using financial shenanigans to lock in prices of fuel so as to smooth over price bumps. But, at least in the U.S., airlines no longer do “fuel hedging”.

Apparently, according to NPR:

“Wall Street transaction fees to make these hedges got expensive…[In addition], the airlines found that they could make money the old-fashioned way by raising prices.”

Well shoot.

And now we’re seeing exactly what’s happening because of this. Business Insider reports, in an article that’s already two weeks old, that the average price of a transcontinental flight rose from $167 to $414 from mid-February to mid-March.

Airlines are now adding “fuel surcharges” to their prices, though I haven’t found confirmation that any US airlines are doing that. Yet.

But airlines are indeed raising fares. So what can you do?

Use the right tools

If you’re just going to your preferred airline’s website and searching for fares that way, you’ve got an easy improvement to make: Use Google Flights.

Google Flights is a flight aggregator which allows you to search across airlines, even ones you’ve probably never heard of.

If you’ve never used this tool, you’re missing out.

You can filter your search by date, by fare class, by when you want the places to arrive or land, even by how much emissions you want to be responsible for.

But for me, one of the best features is its price graph.

This is for when you have some flexibility in when you take your trip. You put in the destination, duration, and whatever filters you care about, and it will show you how much flights will cost on every single day you care to search.

Sometimes, just moving a day in one direction or the other could save you hundreds of dollars. In this example, leaving on one day would cost you $687, but moving a single day later would be $547, an instant savings of almost $150.

I highly encourage you to start using Google Flights for all of your searches.

And this is true even if you’re a Southwest fan, as after years of playing hard to get, you can now finally search for Southwest Airlines flights through Google Flights. Assuming you’d want to.

(Quick note: You don’t actually purchase the flights through Google Flights, but instead click through to the website itself. So make sure you recognize the site where you’re doing the booking, as third-party sites can sneak into your searches if you’re not careful. I’d avoid booking through anything but an actual airline’s site.)

Book now (but with flexibility)

This is a simple one. If you have any travel coming up at all in the next few months, which includes the summer, book now.

Airfares are only going to go up, at least for the next month or two. And summer travel is likely to be very expensive. So the closer in you book, the more expensive it’s going to be.

I wouldn’t be surprised to see cross-country airfares top $1,000 soon. But as of right now (end of March), they aren’t that high.

But here’s the trick: these days, most airlines don’t charge change fees, as long as you don’t book Basic Economy fares. So even if you’re not sure about the specifics of your next flight, buy it now. You can always changes the dates (and sometimes even the destinations!) later.

Just make sure you don’t pick Basic Economy. In my experience, that’s not a place where you want to try and save money.

Pick a different airport

Your preferred airport might be expensive, but there might be an alternative airport nearby.

Many airports aren’t the only game in town. Obviously, some cities like New York have more than one airport to choose from, but other cities have airports that are a little farther afield but could work in a pinch.

For me, my family is in Philadelphia, and try to visit them when I can. But while PHL airport is quite close and convenient, it is often very pricey.

However, looking at the map, Newark isn’t that far away, and EWR has a train station attached that goes right to Center City. So I have often saved hundreds of dollars flying into Newark and then taking Amtrak/NJ Transit down to Philly.

You can use a site like TravelMath to find nearby airports. If you’re going to Chicago, and airfare is cheaper to Milwaukee, it seems worth it to fly there over the closer (and objectively worse) O’Hare.

Fly later in the summer (or fall)

The Points Guy reports that in years past, flights have tended to be cheaper in August than in June and July. This is allegedly because people tend to front-load their vacations in the beginning on the summer, as school resumes earlier in August these days.

And almost always, prices tend to fall after Labor Day for similar reasons, so if you can wait a little while longer, you can save some money.

Don’t fly

Ultimately, the only way to really save money on flights is to not fly at all.

We do have other options other than airfare and car travel. We have Amtrak, and we do have a number of point-to-point bus services like MegaBus and FlixBus.

It may not always be practical, but when it’s an option, it’s worth looking into.

Amtrak can be really cheap when booked far enough in advance, and it’s usually a very comfortable (if slow) ride.

And if you think medium-distance coach travel is uncomfortable, I’m not sure you’ve compared it to air travel recently. The seats are much larger in a coach than in an airplane, and how comfortable is air travel really?

Keep calm and carry on

It’s rough out there right now, and trying to maintain a semblance of normalcy is difficult. Our leaders have created a situation where everything is becoming less affordable and less safe.

But by continuing to travel, to see the country (and the world) and to connect with others, is a great way to buck the system. As Rick Steves wrote in “Travel As a Political Act”:

“Ideally, travel broadens our perspectives personally, culturally, and politically. Suddenly, the palette with which we paint the story of our lives has more colors.”

I know it’s not necessarily easy to keep that in mind when dealing with $1,000+ airfare and four-hour security lines, but it’s still worthwhile.