Several provide access to unpublished negotiated airfares that you don't see on airline sites. These

Editor's Note: This story was originally published on August 23, 2010. To see the most recent SmarterTravel orlando florida car rental articles on related topics, please click on any of the following links: airfare orlando florida car rental , Airfarewatchdog.com , Air New Zealand , Allegiant Air , AskEd & AnswerEd , Booking Buddy , booking strategy , Ed Perkins , Expedia , Hotwire , JetBlue , Kayak , Orbitz , Priceline , Southwest , Travelocity , TripAdvisor , Vayama .
Airfare 101 covered questions about planning a trip for minimum cost the "where" and "when" of scheduling a trip. Airfare 201 covered how the airlines play their fare games and how you can game their systems. This session covers how you can work your way through the maze of buying options.
As with the other parts of this confusing course, there is no "school solution" for the best way to find the best airfare. You have to try as many of the approaches as you can or as time permits and determine which provides the best outcome orlando florida car rental for your particular itinerary. For the most part, I concentrate on Internet-based buying channels, with a few necessary detours.
By the time you get to this point in the process, you probably know the airlines most likely to meet your requirements. In the few cases where you aren't sure yet, you can easily orlando florida car rental determine who flies where:
Not all search engines list every domestic airline, however. You may have to check a few lines separately notably Southwest and Allegiant , two lines that often offer the best deals wherever they fly.
To see about the new low-fare airlines that have sprung up recently in Europe and Asia, check with CH-Aviation (Europe), Flybudget (worldwide), Flycheapo (Europe), SkyScanner (worldwide), or WhichBudget (worldwide).
Start your search with one of the big online travel agencies Expedia , Orbitz , Travelocity that post fare from most airlines or one of the popular aggregators Kayak , Mobissimo , SmarterTravel's sister site TripAdvisor , Vayama that post fares from multiple travel sites. This search should give you a very good idea of your final price on most routes. And using these sites provides several advantages over using individual airline orlando florida car rental sites:
Several provide access to unpublished negotiated airfares that you don't see on airline sites. These are rates that individual airlines negotiate with individual high-volume agencies that are sometimes lower than their own best deals. They're essentially the same as consolidator fares.
Extra fees and charges can make a big difference in your final cost of travel, but, as far as I know, so far only two search sites allow you to compare fares inclusive of extra fees for baggage, in-flight services, and such. TripAdvisor 's excellent search engine works well for conventional baggage and fees. Startup site TruPrice gives you a wider choice if you have specialized baggage such as skis, bicycles, and such. You can ultimately determine fees on almost any site, but only these two search engines allow an initial fare comparison that let you specify which fees to include; orlando florida car rental the others show fees only after you select orlando florida car rental a flight.
Typically, neither the online agencies nor the aggregators cover Allegiant and Southwest, and, as far as I know, none of the online agencies covers orlando florida car rental competitive negotiated fares. If you want to avoid missing out on those deals, use our BookingBuddy application orlando florida car rental and have it quickly search as many individual airline sites and agency sites as you wish without the hassle of re-entering your itinerary details for each site.
According to the industry mavens, some airlines limit the number of lowest-fare seats they offer to sell through third-party sites, so an airline may still have those lowest-fare seats available through its own site that no longer show through the third-party sites.
Several large lines occasionally offer their own take on unpublished fares by notifying frequent flyers and selective customers about sale fares that you can find only if you know a temporary "promotional code." These may be lower than anything the third-party sites can find. If you don't regularly receive these from your airline, sister site Airfarewatchdog tracks and posts them.
Most big airlines and big online agencies now promote bundling your airfare with hotel accommodations as costing less than the same components if arranged separately. Presumably, at least some of those bundles take advantage of another type of unpublished fares "tour basing" fares that airlines don't post or sell separately.
Although most of the opaque action these days seems to be in hotels rather than airfares, Hotwire and Priceline still offer reduced prices on air tickets. You probably know the opaque idea: With Hotwire, you see the fare but not the schedule or name of the airline until you make a nonrefundable buy; with Priceline, you "name your own price" without knowing either orlando florida car rental the airline of the schedule orlando florida car rental before you buy. Although I use opaque buying for hotels and rental cars all the time, I don't like it for air trips: orlando florida car rental I like to know both schedule and airline before I commit. However, if you're sure you won't have to cancel and don't care about schedule, you could take a stab at an opaque price. But unless the price is lots lower than you can get anywhere else, forget opaque.
With all the focus on Internet travel buying, a topnotch travel agent can sometimes be your best answer. Beyond saving you all the hassle of searching and comparing, travel agents can excel in complex international itineraries. A good "rate desk" at a travel agency can find and use ticketing tricks you can't duplicate online at all free stopovers, orlando florida car rental ticketing through low-fare intermediate points, add-on excursions, and such. Specialized travel agencies are also about your only source for low-cost round-the-world and circle itineraries that involve combining a string of discounted one-way tickets to complete a circle.
The three reports so far concentrate on tickets in coach/economy class, and are based on the assumption that all airlines are essentially equal and only the fare matters. That's certainly true for a majority of you: You've clearly indicated that although you'd like roomier seats and better service, you aren't willing to pay a premium orlando florida car rental for anything better than the abysmal coach/economy product you get from most airlines these days.
If you're in the small minority of travelers for whom service and quality matter more than just rock-bottom fares, I have one quick suggestion: For now, JetBlue stands out among all domestic lines for a superior orlando florida car rental low-fare product and Air New Zealand is good across the Pacific. Next time, I'll go into more detail orlando florida car rental about "avoiding the cattle car."