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Shoppers who call themselves bargain hunters account for 44% of shoppers who have made an online purchase in the past three months, up from 41% at this time in 2006. 90% of respondents said free shipping offers would entice them to spend more online
Finding a great Airfare deal is an art. It requires research and lots of time. There isn’t as many ways to get a cheap flight domestically except to use the typical comparison sites such as http://www.sidestep.com and http://www.kayak.com.
Southwest is never listed in any of these so you should always double check there though they usually fly you into an alternate airport or have many stops. It is always advisable to compare to find the best price but then go directly to the airline website to book because it is typically $5-10 cheaper than booking at sites like Orbitz or Expedia, because this is the money they make called a booking fee. And if you are a member of the frequent flyer program, you will usually get 500-1,000 extra FF miles to boot.
For international, there are a number of sites popping up that will you allow you to search for what is known as consolidated bulk fares, which are typically 20-50% cheaper than published fares. Consolidated bulk fares have always been around but typically at specialty travel agencies that specialize in a particular route. They were originally designed for tour operators who would buy blocks of seats and therefore get “bulk” fares (essentially wholesale fares) that they could then package with a tour and offer a tour price that was not much more than a regular published fare. With the power of the Internet, sites are now popping up that aggregate the various specialty travel agencies in one search similar to SideStep and Kayak. These sites include:
The one caveat here is that you will typically get little (30% or less) or no frequent flier mileage for these fares and you will typically not get any seat assignment, which means you may be stuck in the middle one a very long flight. The carrier might also be a minor carrier (i.e. Aer Lingus vs. British Airways, Asiana vs. Japan Airlines). You should always check the booking class with the airlines frequent flier website to see if you will get credit. If an American carrier is offered, you usually will get 100% mileage credit and a seat assignment though service is usually better on non-American carriers (and the female flight attendants typically look better ;) ).
FREQUENT FLYER PROGRAMS
If you travel a lot, try to concentrate your flying one airline that is part of the big three alliances (i.e. AA/One World, UA/Star Alliance, DL/Sky Team) and achieve the highest elite status on that airline/alliance. Once you have done that, a little known tip is that you can status match on another airline (i.e. If you are Delta Sky Team Platinum Medallion, you can apply to American to status match you to Platinum) using your elite status on another airline. You do so by sending a letter along with your mileage statement and proof of status to the airline you want to match the status. They usually do this one time only but you will have elite statuses on multiple airlines, which means you will get upgraded more often on different airlines. Here is a link to a great site that tells you more about what to do: http://flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=9558.
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