The Travel Expert team atShuttleWizard.com has found an airfare hack that can save passengers 20% or more on flights (in our case 29%). The process is quite simple, anyone can do it, and it just requires time and some polishing of your airfare searching skills.
Why It Works: Airlines have complicated pricing algorithms that take into account dozens of variables to update their pricing on a daily basis. Most importantly, many airlines compare their pricing to the competition and adjust pricing accordingly. This opens the possibility for arbitrage scenarios where travelers can book a cheap rate for a competitive route that makes a stopover at your (actual) destination city. This fare can be lower than booking directly to your (actual) destination city.
We picked East Asia because this is home to one of the most competitive markets in the world. There are plenty of airlines competing for the same trans-pacific routes from major hubs in the States to capital cities in Asia. This mixture is great for travelers looking to find deals to travel to Asia. Here, we teach you how.
How To Do It: Lets go to Taipei. I picked December 1st, 2015 to try out this technique. We will be searching for the cheapest one-way flight to Taipei following these simple steps:
- Go to Google Flights and enter your preferred travel destination. In this case, we want to go from LAX and to Taipei (TPE).
- Look at the search results. The most affordable flight is with China Airlines for $561.00 USD.
- Redo the original search and replace the destination airport with different airport hubs in that region of the world. In this case, we tried Hong Kong (HKG), Tokyo (NRT), Seoul (ICN), and Shanghai (PVG). Check out this list to see all airport hubs around the world. http://bit.ly/1JCaq0s.
- KEY: Under “More Options”, select your real destination city as the connecting airport (in our case Taipei), and complete the search.
4. In this case, Hong Kong showed up as the cheapest flight option with a stopover in Taipei. It will cost us $398.00 USD to fly LAX-TPE-HKG versus $561.00 USD for flying LAX directly to Taipei. That’s 29% cheaper. Huge savings!!
The Execution: During your travel day, please make sure you tell the check-in attendant that you only want to check-in your flight and luggage to Taipei– otherwise your luggage will end up in Hong Kong!! I’ve personally done this twice, once in Frankfurt and once in Jakarta, and I was prepared to give explanations and come up with a story but both times the check-in attendants just smiled and didn’t ask anything.
About the Author:
Alex Saad is the Founder and CEO of ShuttleWizard.com. He hopes to use his travel expertise to find cheaper airport transportation deals for fellow travelers. ShuttleWizard.com is an airport transportation search engine and reservations platform.
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