Cheap Tickets - Travel Deals

For most people, Christmas is all about family and spending quality time with people you love (and may not get to see much during the rest of the year). It’s a pity, then, that getting home for the holidays without spending a fortune can be such a royal pain in the you-know-what.

Finding cheap Christmas airfare is definitely a challenge, as anyone who’s started looking can attest to. You plug in your travel dates and get hit with huge ticket prices. You think you can use the old trick of shifting your trip by one or two days in either direction and you still run into the same high prices. It’s frustrating. Oh, and don’t count on using those precious frequent flyer miles you’ve accumulated, either, because the Christmas holidays are typically part of an airline’s blackout dates.

But even though you may not find a super bargain-basement price on an airline ticket over Christmas, there are still some things you can do to avoid paying more than you need to for your flight.

Thanksgiving is all about family, feasting, and friends - and, unfortunately, ferociously long lines at the airport. It’s notoriously the busiest travel time in the United States, which can lead to increased delays, more flight cancellations, and higher ticket prices. It’s hard to avoid some of the troubles that can come along if you have to travel over Thanksgiving, but there are definitely some things within your control - including traveling on days that aren’t as nightmarishly busy.

In recent articles on this site we’ve explored some of the aspects that make traveling at Thanksgiving so bad, and what you can do to make them less bad. Here’s a round-up of what we discovered, with links to each article for more in-depth information.

One of the things you’ll read over and over again when you’re looking for the best ways to find travel bargains is that being flexible is key. For the most part, that means being willing (and able) to move your trip by a day or two in either direction from your chosen travel date, or taking an early flight instead of one that lets you sleep in. But even beyond that, being flexible with the airports you fly in and out of can help you expand your ability to find travel deals, too.

Keep in mind that the big hub airport in your area may be the one that most often has the best deals, simply because it’s got the most traffic coming in and going out and therefore airlines are more likely to have empty seats they want to sell cheap. But sometimes the smaller secondary or even tertiary airports in a region will have deals the big hubs won’t - if a discount carrier only flies to the smaller airport and not the bigger one, or if the smaller airport charges the airlines lower fees to operate there, for instance. So even if you end up flying in and out of the bigger hubs most of the time, it never hurts to check the alternate airports nearby.

Traveling at Thanksgiving can be one of the most stressful things you’ll do all year, but if you end up paying too much for your ticket that’s just adding insult to injury. There’s not necessarily much you can do to make the airport less crowded or the weather any more pleasant for flying, but there’s definitely something you can do to make sure you’re getting the best deal possible on your ticket.

A few somethings, in fact.

In this article we’ll look at the best ways to find cheap airfare for Thanksgiving travel, some of which are tips that will apply to non-holiday travel and some of which really are targeted to these overly busy times at the airport. For starters, you should pat yourself on the back for taking the first step in getting a deal on Thanksgiving airfare - you’re doing the research. Well done.

Now take that forward momentum further with these tips, too.

Psst…friends…gather around. Come closer. I am only going to say this once and I don’t want to say it too loudly so that the whole world knows. Ok, ready? Good. From now until November 11, 2007, you can save 15% on select Alaska Airlines flights if you enter the discount code – EC06507 – when you order your tickets online. The usual restrictions apply. Let’s just keep this as a little secret between you and me.

During the past 14 months or so that I have posted travel deals on this little ol’ blog of ours, I have come across some fantastic travel deals, as well as some deals that were merely average. On the scale of merely average to fantastic, I have to say that the deals I found today are beyond fantastic.

Want to go to Europe this winter? You, my cyber friend, are in luck. You can fly from Philadelphia to Frankfurt, Germany for $365. That is insane. There is also a new direct flight from Portland, Oregon to Amsterdam, Netherlands for $664. As someone who lives in Portland and who eyes European flights like a hawk, I can safely tell you that it will never get much better than this.

In fact, Priceline’s PriceBreakers! have goodies from all parts of the United States to all parts of Europe. The usual restrictions apply, meaning you can’t get these deals during peak holiday season and you might have to travel on odd days of the week, but those are sacrifices well worth making when it means getting an outstanding price on airfare to Europe.

I will be spending my honeymoon in Malaysia next summer. This didn’t come about by choice, but rather by circumstance. My fiancée is attending an event in Penang and since we both have limited vacation time and funds, we decided to role her trip into one grand vacation.

When we made this decision, I was lukewarm about it. I knew that Malaysia had the tall towers in Kuala Lumpur and I knew that it had some nice beaches, but other than that it was a blank hole in my visual map of Asia. I knew some people who traveled through the country, but mainly because they were trying to go to Thailand.

After doing some research and looking around, my lukewarm feelings have turned into unbridled excitement. By all accounts, Malaysia is an excellent place to travel. It has plenty of options for both the budget and the more upscale traveler, it has a rich culture, it has friendly people who speak English, and it does have some splendid beaches where you can get away from the world and even get away from other tourists.

Airfares to Malaysia are not always cheap, but they are also doable. The moral of the story is to never discount a country as a possible travel destination until you do some research. Well that, and make sure you marry someone who is cool enough to want to cool to far corners of the world for her honeymoon.

It doesn’t seem long ago that the Canadian dollar couldn’t buy you the cheapest spot in Monopoly. My how times have changed. The Canadian dollar has leveled against the US dollar and is only getting stronger. What that means for you, dear traveler, is that your vacations to Canada are becoming more and more expensive by the day. That pint of Molson is going to cost more. That gallon of maple syrup is going to eat away at your savings account. The medicines you can’t afford in the US…well, those are still a bargain but not as much as they used to be.

To offset the sticker price shock, United Vacations has a deal going where you can save $200 off your next trip to the Great White North. Their packages include deals on beautiful mountain spots like Banff, Jasper and Whistler. If city life is more of your thing, you can also visit Vancouver, Calgary, and Toronto. If you want to get your French on, Montreal and Temblant will welcome you to Parlez-Vous Francais.

The value of its currency might have changed, but one thing that has not is the fact that Canada is still an excellent country for both urbanities and outdoors folks to visit.

If you ever want to get a sense of the size of the United States, hop in a car and drive from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Somewhere around Iowa you will start to wonder when it will ever end. The U.S. is indeed a big country, although it doesn’t always feel that way in this age of modern air travel. You can hop on a plane and go from one coast to another in less time than it takes to drive across Oregon.

You can also fly coast to coast for less money than you would spend filling the car with gas and filling your stomach with Doritos at the roadside mini markets. For example, the newest kids on the block, Virgin America, will fly you from San Francisco to Washington, DC for $139 one way. They’ll also let you go from New York to LA for $159 one way. Those are cheap prices when you consider the distance of the flights.

There will always be something special about taking a road trip and being able to truly experience a country, but if you want to save time and money air travel is certainly the way to go.

Those sounds you heard this past weekend were the expressions of joy coming out of the mouths of football fans from coast to coast. With college football season underway and the NFL on its way, this is the favorite time of year for those of us who like to sit on the couch and watch grown men exercise. You can hardly blame us for shouting out loud.

Of course, watching football or any sporting event on television hardly compares to being in the stadium watching it in person. The roar of the crowd, the taste of overpriced food and beverages, the close-up views of the athletes and the cheerleaders…that is the essence of being a sports fan. You can capture it a bit from the comfort of your own home or even better you can combine a trip to a game with your travel plans.

If you’d like to follow your favorite team around early in the season, you’ll want to do yourself a favor and check out the sale that Southwest Airlines is currently offering. The prices are low, the flights are plentiful, and everyone knows that you have to be at the game when your team wins a big one.