What Are The Best Airplane Life Hacks?

Jonathan Breeze, CEO at AardvarkCompare.com (2015-present)

The best, simplest, hack is to buy cheap - Never buy a Refundable ticket again - you have just reduced your ticket cost by 70%.

A hack is a way of getting more for less when traveling.

Blog | AardvarkCompare.com Airline Ticket Hack

This is a recent example, using American Airlines between Dallas and LA.
I am looking around 6 months ahead of time.

So, we buy a Refundable Economy Ticket. LAX to LHR in August for a week (6 months from now).

American wants $2,100 for a Main Cabin Fully Flexible Seat.Truly and honestly, I have no idea what this is. It’s in the Main Cabin, but is more expensive than a First Class seat. Truly Baffling.

So, we don’t click on this, but seek a more traditional Main Cabin (Economy) seat.
And now, this looks like a bargain, after we managed to avoid the $2,100 fully flex seat.

American wants $1,150 for a Main Cabin Flexible Seat.So, it is flexible, just not ‘fully’ flexible. American are kind; we can change our flights, not lose all of our money, but we will need to pay for the effort to make the flight change. $200. For a change fee. That makes the convenience fee to book a movie ticket seem fair and justifiable. $200 extra to allow me to make a change. Unbelievable.

Still, it’s only $200. It’s not as though the airlines feed on this at all. Surely, it cannot add up to much…

Well, according to the US Bureau of Transportation Statistics, the Top 25 US Airlines rake in $3Bn a year in Reservation Change Fees. And $4Bn a year in Baggage Fees.
Seriously?!

If you didn’t hate the airlines before, you probably hate them now, I would imagine.
But, let’s go beat them at their own game..

Just before you hit the ‘Buy’ button, your brain kicks in, and you, unlike almost every traveler, decide to get creative.
Why not buy a Non-Refundable seat, and wrap it up with some ‘Cancel For Any Reason’ Travel Insurance from a Marketplace like AardvarkCompare.com

American wants $400 for the Non-Refundable Main Cabin Seat.

Add the Insurance, it will cost around $50.

We are choosing a really robust set of coverages..
Cancellation (Sickness, Death, Incapacitation etc) - 100% Refund.
Cancellation for Work Reason - 100% Refund.
Cancellation for Any other Reason - 75% Refund.

So, for $450 a customer booking that DFW - LAX return has nearly the same level of coverage as the person paying $1,150 for exact same seat.
A $700 saving.

Remember that the person in the $1,150 seat still has to pay $200 every time they make a change.
Whereas the person in the $450 seat just needs to throw the ticket away and use their insurance if a flight needs to be cancelled.

Clever Stuff!

If you are even thinking about buying a refundable ticket, then do the math on taking a non-refundable ticket, and a travel insurance.

The airlines are robbing people blind with their 3x pricing on refundable tickets.

Best of all, if you are in the USA, you can have absolute confidence that you are buying at the best possible price - Anti-Discrimination law works to protect customers from overpaying - you cannot find the same policy cheaper anywhere else.

Blog | AardvarkCompare.com - Will I Pay More Buying Travel Insurance from a Comparison Website? Nope. Not in the USA. Insurance prices are filed with state regulators - the price you see from a Marketplace like AardvarkCompare.com is the same price that you will get if you go to the travel insurer’s website. Basically, our services are free of charge to a customer.

Safe Travels!

The more expensive the ticket, the larger the savings.
First Class and Business Tickets can be insanely expensive, unless you play the system..

Blog | AardvarkCompare.com First Class Pricing - Beat the System

For those of you who would prefer to keep the airlines profitable, here is the price for a Refundable First Class Ticket from LAX to LHR..

$23,400 for a First Class Refundable ticket, or $6,800 for a First Class Non-Refundable with Insurance from AardvarkCompare.com

$6,800 for a $23,400 Seat?!

British Airways wants $6,300 for the Non-Refundable First Class Seat.

I then add a $450 Cancel For Any Reason Travel Insurance Policy from AardvarkCompare.com

That’s a $16,600 saving. Same flight. You’re welcome.

Safe Travels!

Travelore Tips: How To Find First-Class Airfare For Under $1,000

Courtesy of Cathay Pacific

Cathay Pacific's first-class cabin.

Until recently, if you wanted to travel in first or business class you needed to have a stash of frequent flier miles, pay three to five times the coach fare, or deal with opaque consolidators who buy cheap fares in bulk.

But these days, the number of discounted first- and business-class fares is on the rise, according to a recent Wall Street Journal report. But how do you find them? It takes some planning ahead—and some creative searching—but it’s possible to uncover round-trip premium-cabin fares for less than $1,000 for domestic flights and less than $2,000 for international trips.

Here are seven strategies that can help you find these well-priced premium seats.

Try one-way searches
There are often only a few cheap first-class fares per flight. Instead of flying round trip on a single airline, you may find better prices by flying one way with one airline and returning with another. (On domestic flights, it’s now rare that one-way trips cost more than half of a round trip.) On some domestic routes, first-class fares can be as little as $100 more than coach seats.

Get alerts
The best deals to international destinations are often short lived, so alerts can get you in on the action.FirstClassFlyer.com has a monthly newsletter and curated fare alerts for paying subscribers. The Twitter feed of TheFlightDeal has nothing but low fare alerts, though most are for coach fares. And, if you want to do it yourself, the "Premium Fare Deals" forum on FlyerTalk is often the first source of some great offers.

Don’t scoff at a smaller airline
While you may balk at first, smaller carriers have upped their game in recent years. LOT Polish and Hainan Airlines, to take two examples, often offer very low prices from Europe and Asia to the U.S., and all of their international service is on brand-new aircraft with lie-flat seating. You'll need to shop carefully: Some airlines like Norwegian, Condor, and Air Transat offer a business-class fare, but the actual onboard amenities are not comparable to what you'll find on more established international carriers.

Get the right card
British Airways offers a $400 discount on many business- and first-class fares purchased via its websiteif you are an AARP member. If you have a World Elite MasterCard you can get up to 15% off all but the very cheapest fares on Lufthansa, Swiss, Austrian, and Brussels Airlines; up to 30% off fares to South America on LAN and TAM; and up to 20% off Cathay Pacific flights to Asia.

Keep checking after you book
Some airlines, including United, will offer discounted first-class upgrades after you book your ticket. To find them, you need to login to your reservation online before you check in for your flight. (These offers might also pop up as you check in.) Delta will let you switch to a first-class fare on the same itinerary with no change fee, so if you see a good first-class fare open up after you book, call and lock it in.

Combine miles and the strong dollar
All of the major U.S. frequent flier programs now let you book one-way tickets with your miles for half the price of a round trip. If you have a stash of miles, consider using them one way and buying a return ticket that originates outside the U.S. Thanks to the strong dollar, there are many fares below $2,000 round tripto the U.S. this summer, like Copenhagen to New York for less than $1,400 and Dublin to Chicago for less than $1,600.

Fly the short legs in coach
For international trips, book a cheap coach ticket to a gateway before spending more for international business class. For example, fares to Europe from the Midwest or East Coast can be as much as $1,000 cheaper than similar itineraries from the West Coast. New York tends to have the most frequent discounted business- and first-class fares to Europe, so if you can get there economically, you can then fly the rest of the way up front.

Written by Brian Karimzad

 www.cntraveler.com