Ask HN: How do you find airline tickets? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How do you find airline tickets?

48 pointscapableweb38 comments

Popular among my group seems to be:

- Google Flights

- Kayak

- ITA Matrix (which shockingly still seems to be online)

Is there any new great options out there for finding cheap flights?

Google flights is the best starting point. But during and post-covid, it's really recommended book directly with an airline. A travel agency will likely take half a day to rebook you after a cancellation, but an airline will put you on the next flight. Definitely don't book 2 separate tickets with 2 airlines to save money, because it's still pretty likely one flight will be cancelled/delayed and you will get stuck.

Check driving/transit to nearby airports instead of flying from your city. In North America this may give you a few more options and rarely worth it. In Europe this unlocks many deals.

Check multi-city options. Made-up example: Compare [Paris-New York-LA-New-York-Paris] to [Paris-New York-Paris (plus a separate booking of New York-LA-New York] to [Paris-New York-Paris].

Forget about maximizing points for your personal bookings. In my experience in the last few years, they are almost useless for individuals compared to taking the best option/airline on case-by-case basis. They only make sense for business travelers that can take expensive flights for business and then leverage the points for personal travel.

If you just want to travel when you see an opportunity, "Scott's cheap flights" or a regional alternative is worth looking into.

IDK how Google flight is a serious option when any complex query (2 layovers on obscure route) always ends up with "oops the price you've seen before isn't available anymore" or you need to "Call agent" to get realistic price.

I've noticed the "oops the price changed" a lot recently, but prior it was rock solid for years for me (mostly European airlines/flights)

The other gem is squeezing an economy class leg into otherwise business class search. And it's not the inevitable 2 hour connection. It's the entire 12 hour flight that they think you'll not notice before booking.

> Forget about maximizing points for your personal bookings.

I agree that trying to maximize points to gain free travel is often not worth it for non-business travelers, but sticking as much as possible with one airline to gain a higher frequent flyer status can make your travel a lot more comfortable. Higher status allows you check in bags for free, airport lounge access for free, picking your seats for free, but most importantly you can bypass the ridiculously long lines for check in and sometimes get priority security screening as well.

Google flights.

Flying feels more MBA-optimized these days. If you want the best deals gotta be traveling alone, no checked bags, and okay with a middle seat.

I fly often and tickets are almost 1.5x to 3x more any other way.

Just booked a flight and it was $75 to be able to pick a seat and if you wanted airline points it was $180…

I’ve had Going (formerly Scott’s Cheap Flights) for several years now. I’ve gotten some decent bookings out of it, but IMO it’s really only worth it if you’re the kind of person who makes impulse travel purchases. The deals there can be really great (I just saw a $375 ticket to Peru from the USA which is less than half the usual price), but they only appear for a day or two. I’ve found the easiest way to get a good price when you have set or barely flexible travel dates is to do the following:

- go to Google Flights

- look at the price history

- find the lowest price for your dates

- pick some nominal percentage above the floor like 10-15%

- watch the flight on google flights (you get an email every time the price changes)

- buy the ticket once it hits that range.

Works every time for me. I don’t see massive price differences between Kayak Google Flights etc either

Google Flights has in my opinion the best interface to initiate the search. But it won't show you necessarily the best price if you are flying international airlines. So I always end up in the airline's website locally connected via VPN. Sometimes the difference is absurd, tickets selling for $300 in the international version of the website go for $60 if you access the regional version or from other countries except the US.

Wow! Good idea! What VPN do you use? Never used one but this might be the first legitimate use case for signing up for one.

I can confirm that this is absolutely true for LATAM Airlines. Booking a Brazilian flight (origin and destination within Brazil) is cheaper on LATAM's Brazilian portal than on LATAM's USA portal whenever I've compared them. You don't need a VPN: just look at latamairlines.com/br/pt vs latamairlines.com/us/en.

Ahh, but they are very sneaky. The Brazilian site only accepts payments with credit cards issued by Brazilian banks. They won't accept credit cards from the USA or other countries. You have to use the USA portal or international portal of LATAM if you want to pay with a non-Brazilian credit card, and you'll pay more for the exact same flight.

I use https://skyscanner.com/ I like the less invasive interface and prices are good.

I typically check both google fights and Skyscanner.

ITA matrix has options to remove 737MAX, so I start there.

Regardless of how you personally feel about 737Max, hundreds of them are flying every day without issue.

I do google flights and kayak. I have sometimes found, after I understand what is available, going to the airline is sometimes good. Google and Kayak, for me, sometimes provide inaccurate information. As in I prefer Peasant Plus, as opposed to full Peasant. Oh and I have checked luggage. Both with often offer a great trip at the time I want. Then when I start going through it is 'Ok that is Standby Peasant Minus (Joking a little) checked and carry on are extra'. But maybe I am just bad at searching.

Kiwi does find some good deals, but never book Ryanair thru them - you won't be able to easily access the flight booking for checkin or buying extras.

Ryanair requires email/password to login and Kiwi uses their own mailboxes - they do provide them, but I remember having to open a case. Since it was a somewhat complex booking with multiple people - I've spend silly amount of time just to book carry on.

I usually start off on Google Flights but try to check out CheapTickets.com or Priceline.com, which sometimes have "blind deals" meaning they sell you a ticket without a time for a discounted rate. You know the date you are leaving, but you don't know the time until you purchase the ticket. Oftentimes, these are early morning flights, which I prefer since they are less likely to be packed and you often can get rows to yourself.

Some advice on getting cheaper tickets:

- Make sure you are months out although sometimes you can get deals within a month of the flight

- Purchase your plane ticket on a Tuesday

- Fridays, Saturdays, and Mondays are probably going to be your most expensive days

- Be willing to adjust your flight by a few days -- Google Flights is especially helpful with showing you quickly the difference in prices and it can be a few hundred bucks saved just by leaving the next day or a day earlier

- Always check your prices in Incognito mode first and when you are ready to make an actual purchase, then you can go into Regular mode

- Almost always, early morning flights are cheaper

- Direct flights are almost always more expensive

- Pack light, take little, save the most

- Look for the airlines with special deals -- Spirit airlines is headquartered in Vegas, so they are always trying to get people to come to Vegas for a vacation -- likely sponsored by Vegas, and you can get these tickets for less than $100 roundtrip. Southwest and Frontier also have amazing deals. The issue with these flights, however, is that they will fly you into their HQ and you may have a long layover, but it could be worth it

- Google Flights is often good at letting you know if its a good deal as they keep a price watch on all flights

Skiplagged is also very good

Just saw a news article about American Airlines banning a college-aged passenger from the airline for 3 years upon (correctly) suspecting he would skip the last leg of his flight because he presented a drivers license with his home address in the layover city. So perhaps not the greatest idea.

So, how are airlines losing money with skipping part of the flights? Passengers already paid the whole amount. Shouldn't airlines consider reviewing their pricing then?

Because they want to price their tickets based on the value you receive, not their costs, to maximize their profit.

AA sold the ticket assuming the customer was going between two small cities, with the "inconvenience" of a layover in the middle, so thus had a low enough value to justify a low cost. A direct flight from a small city to a big city, on the other hand, is assigned a much higher value, and thus is priced much higher. This is despite the fact that the former has a higher operating cost than the latter.

Still doesn't explain why a gate agent decided to play detective and save the giant corporation employing them a bit of money on a hunch, screwing over the customer they're directly facing in the process.

Never take luggage, never admit you’re skiplagging, never use your rewards info, get a passport card or global entry card as ID (no address).

(Does not excuse AA for their handling of the situation)

Is this from experience?

Also, don't airlines have enough information to identify you anyway, even if you don't connect your rewards profile? Alternatively, is that bit of advice because airlines are particularly unhappy to let you get miles for a segment of a flight you never boarded?

Yes, but also travel blogger advice. If you use your rewards info, they will possibly nuke your rewards.

https://support.skiplagged.com/hc/en-us/articles/11500328668...

Using a passport as ID is a great way to prevent anyone, not just airlines, from learning your address.

Sidenote: if I want to build my little script to find cheap flights on a set of predefined routes... where do I start? It looks like there aren't much open APIs to query in this space

Our family of four is on an international vacation right now, peak season for the destination.

I checked all - direct airlines, kayak, Google flights, etc. I had specific dates and most online quotes were between $8,000 - $12,000 for cheapest economy ticket. 8k tickets had more stops/duration.

A local travel agent found a comparable ticket with good duration and stops for $5,500 for all of us. And I paid $600 for seat selection since we were traveling with kids and didn’t want to risk sitting apart.

I use Google Flights for most except for

SouthWest.com directly for their flights.

jsx.com for the small niche rides on a small jet

Unrelated: rome2rio.com for the whole picture including last mile to and from airports

Apart from Google Flights, I often use azair.com, because it will let you do 'fuzzy searches' such as "any airport in Germany to any airport in Italy". If you want to take a journey that's rarely served, it's often quickest to add in a leg by high speed rail than adjust your travel plans around a rare direct flight, or take a multi leg plane journey via somewhere out of the way.

Used the following engine to find outliers - different results than the typical popular search engines mentioned so far.

[Budget air tickets from low-cost airlines - combine lowcost carriers for optimal routing - find cheapest airfare among many airports at once](https://www.azair.eu/index.php)

I'm surprised none used the API of Amadeus.

It will give you the same results as most booking websites. (Most of them rely on a shortlist of companies like Amadeus or Sabre.)

And you can't buy tickets without creating your own company plus extra steps, so you end up on a booking website anyway.

But eh, we're IT guys and that's fun.

I check southwest.com separately. They don't list elsewhere (avoiding commission fees I assume).

FYI, Google flights displays southwest flights but you have to book through SWA directly.

Have used Best Travel Store for many years. No complaints. (https://www.bt-store.com/)

I haven't done any comparison to see if it is the best for finding good buys.

For domestic USA I get a companion pass with SW for two years right at the beginning of the year. I rinse and repeat and only book with SW. Credit card offers are the best way to do this and there’s plenty of sites talking about it.

1. Using Google Flights to find flights based on my preferences. 2. Use VPN and incognito mode to check prices directly on airline websites. 3. Pick the cheapest option.

Google Flights and when I feel like the price can be better I set alerts which will notify me on the daily about price changes and buy when the price is right.

ITA kayak combo

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