Getting out of town without becoming homeless!

With summer right around the corner, I’m sure many of you are planning some trips. And if you’re not… you should be! I mean, why the heck not?! So, because I hella heart you, I wanted to share my resources for cheap flights and some tips on how not to go broke on a plane ticket.

Domestic Flights.

Holla at Southwest. Their prices are low all the time and they almost always have specials going on. Sometimes, you can find “web only” tickets for $39-$49 one way. My flights home to New York from to Philly, never cost more than $100. Even when booking last minute you can still get good deals. After the absurdly low fares, the second best thing about Southwest, is the fact that you can change your itinerary whenever you want, with NO additional fee! Yeah, for real. Let’s say you book a flight to San Francisco from Philly, then your favorite band (cough, The Roots) decide to come to town and perform for free on the exact day that you’re flying out. Cause for alarm right? Wrong! Obviously, you cannot miss this show. Jump onto Soutwest, click on check your flight status>view or change your flight>enter confirmation number>change flight! Booyea!

International Flights.

Buying international flights can be a royal pain in the butt. Not only do you have to find a cheap ticket, but

you also have to pay attention to ensure you’re not stuck with a nine hour layover in El Paso. Add that to the fact that nobody just calls airlines anymore and books a ticket. Unheard of! Nowadays, there are so many online sites competing to sell you the cheapest ticket, it can be hard to know where to start or if you are actually getting a good deal. My go to site for buying international flights is Kayak. Kayak will pretty much do everything but buy you the darn ticket. Here’s how it works: you enter the trip you want to go on in the search engine and Kayak searches all the sites you would normally check individually (Priceline, Orbitz, Cheaptickets, etc.). The results will come back with a list of fares, click on chart and it’ll show you what the cheapest dates to depart are. This tab will also show you what the buying trends are for that trip, so that you know if you should buy the ticket or wait it out. My favorite thing about Kayak are the buzz alerts. Every time I read “Kayak Buzz Weekly Alert” in the subject line of my inbox, I get amped. So what’ s a buzz? Let’s say, I’m trying to head to Port au Prince, Haiti (which I was) and I refuse to pay more than $500 for a ticket (which I did), I create an email alert in Kayak for this trip indicating the max I want to spend on the ticket. If and when the ticket drops below $500, Kayak sends me a buzz. You can select to receive these alerts monthly, weekly or daily. Thanks to Kayak I’m heading to Haiti in July for under $400!

Some more wallet friendly advice:

• Never buy tickets Thursday -Sunday! Tuesdays and Wednesdays are the best days to buy tickets.
• If you can avoid it, don’t fly on the weekends! Weekend trips are super expensive, if you can, head out midweek.
• Be flexible with your dates. July is the most expensive month to fly.

Safe and happy travels!