Searching for Flights ...

Sutekh_sl said:

I was wondering if anyone's run across a site that allows you search for flights via date.

For instance I put; departing from NYC going to Seattle. The results bring up a calendar with prices for each date of the flight. Been wanting to travel but don't really have any reason to pick a time other than 'when it's cheapest'.

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Cheap Air, Inc. - Search for Cheap Air Fare at CheapAir.com


Make sure to check my dates are flexible. Doesn't do international.

Kayak.com man

Just be smart about it. Kayak does a poor job at displaying prices for some airlines like jetblue and southwest, must be some legal mumbo jumbo I don't know about. The sad truth is that it's probably best to search each airline separately at this point. I've never seen something on <blah.com> cheaper than the airline direct unless it's part of some package maybe

Tuesday and Wednesday are the cheapest for domestic flights, usually. Friday and Sunday are the most expensive. So just pick a week and compare Tues and Weds.

The absolute cheapest you're going to get is actually picking a day where there are 3-4 flights going where you want, going to the airport, and buying your ticket at least an hour before boarding. I did this this past weekend on Southwest and ended up paying like $300 less (two people, did the same thing on the return flight) then if I'd bought my tickets 3+ weeks in advance.

kayak.com/explore and the google flight price chart thing when you google the flight are my two go tos

Kayak also allows flexible date searching. Click on the "Show flexible dates" link below the Search button.

Rome2rio: discover how to get anywhereis also a good site to find the best ways to travel. This site is great for Europe because it pulls up all the bus, flight, and train routes. Tells you general prices and travel time. What's great about flights is it lets you know the general flight schedules on a daily basis. Like if there's is a daily flight for what your doing at 10:15am. Or if there is a 1:30pm flight Mon, Tues, and Thurs. Really handy when your dates are flexible.

I have a friend that left my company to work on Google Flights. Honestly thought it was a bad idea, don;t know how well it compares to the other companies listed.

If you take the time to teach yourself how to use it, nothing beats ITA Matrix:

Matrix - ITA Software by Google

Khane_sl said:

If you take the time to teach yourself how to use it, nothing beats ITA Matrix:

Matrix - ITA Software by Google

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I'd just go with Kayak to be honest. I've never found a cheaper price with Matrix and it's much more difficult to use. You just have to keep in mind that as mentioned earlier, Kayak does not handle Jetblue/Southwest that well (Not that anyone would want to fly on either)

//Flying to Phuket, Thailand on Friday from JFK for 900 USD (round trip including a flight from Phuket to Bangkok)

///500 cheaper a ticket to fly from JFK then Boston... spending a night in NYC beforehand and getting a good meal, etc

Not that anyone would want to fly on JetBlue? What? That's like...the best US airline except for maybe Virgin.

Southwest is also an excellent domestic airline. I think Vinen is being uppity about the fact that SW doesn't have first class.

Kayak is fine as well, but if you know about fuel dumping or hidden city ticketing you can potentially save yourself a lot of money on flights by utilizing those tricks via ITA Matrix.

Also there are no OTA (online travel agencies) that handle Southwest. You HAVE to book through SW's website. But that's fine since it makes the whole process easier and it's fairly cheap to begin with. SW has some of the best customer service in the airline industry in my opinion.

Alex_sl said:

Not that anyone would want to fly on JetBlue? What? That's like...the best US airline except for maybe Virgin.

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Only Domestic Airline I fly is Virgin if I have the choice. (They do BOS -> SFO which is all I really fly Domestic anymore)

JetBlue is going to shit as they are shrinking seat size. (Hint: Row 6 which is marked as even more space is often even more space on one of their plane configurations. I think A320...)

I may be a near 1%'er but FUCK the price of first class. I'd rather spend that money on overpriced liquor at Restaurants.

Yeah, I fly SW often too. Hard to beat the prices and customer service. You can buy flights and if you find them cheaper later they give you the cheaper rate and you get credit on your account. That's awesome. Plus, they make it really easy to modify your travel plans at no charge.

As mentioned earlier I fly all the time for work, and I love SW/Jetblue. I rarely get to fly jetblue for a number of reasons but when I do I've got zero complaints. Shit all the seats have fucking tv/usb outlet. Delta and the other major ass-pile airlines(which I do sadly fly) don't even have that shit unless you are going international.

And as far as SW. I used to ONLY fly SW. I love that airline. Literally the best customer service I've experienced in my 10+ years of work travel plus the perks are awesome.
-Their Wifi works, is cheap and if you are a milage flyer it's free. Again the "top" airlines don't offer this. They have that fucking "gogo" bullshit which I can never get to work correctly and they do not offer it free to any tier of frequent flyer
-Best customer service. No fees or crap or standbys and flight changes.
-Usually funny and polite steward folks
-The boarding process is a bit fucked, particularly for people who have not flown in a while and don't understand the way it works. I don't mind cause I'm always A1-15 but I can understand the complaints here
-I have for many years in a row now got a "companion pass" which means on any flight I take someone can fly with me for free. Sadly I almost never use this thing, but it would be awesome if you had a wife/girlfriend that could travel with you

Only shitty part is they operate a single air plane model and have few direct flights to most places unless you do an east coast run I recently moved out west and they just kind of suck now for me. I randomly selected Delta as my new airline a few years ago just because all of my fucking options sucked and it's better to stick with one for the mile perks. Delta can fucking blow me. I'm platinum and I still get treated like a sack of shit. Only noteworthy perk is the sky club

I'm on the west coast, and have had to start taking frequent flights between Phoenix and Portland. Southwest and US Airways is who I travel with most often. US Airways has pretty decent base prices, but you're fucked if you want to get in on the better seats, or have bags to check. Now you're paying an extra $100 in fees over what Southwest would have charged you.

Toss up on seat size. I'm 6'6" , and so unless I fly first class, no seat is going to be all that comfortable.

SFO and OAK must be major SW hubs because I can get direct flights to almost anywhere. Vegas, SLC, anywhere SoCal, Denver.

Khane_sl said:

If you take the time to teach yourself how to use it, nothing beats ITA Matrix:

Matrix - ITA Software by Google

Click to expand...

Or just useFlights - Google Search.

Psypher_sl said:

Or just useFlights - Google Search.

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ITA Matrix has some substantial advantages. For example, you can search flights from and to multiple airports at once. I've effectively used that for flights to Europe: for many flights, you can't avoid a layover somewhere -- usually London -- so finding the cheapest flight to some decent-sized airport is all that matters. Going via Oslo instead of London saves me about $500, and there's no way I would have found the flight without ITA. (Turns out, Norway has a budget airline that recently started flying to the US.)

You can also search flights with layovers in a particular city, which is great for US domestic flights. Sometimes, flying A -> B -> C is cheaper than flying A -> B. So you can search for flights to all major US airports that also have a layover in B... then you just bail in B and don't take the last leg of the flight. Obviously works only for one-way tickets and no checked luggage.

I also like the calendar search option. You can pull up, for example, all outbound flights in June with a return flight 5-8 days later. Fantastic if you want to be somewhere for a few days, but are flexible about what those dates are.

edit: I looked up NYC to Seattle for 5-8 days in June. Cheapest date is on June 2nd (a Tuesday) for 7 or 8 nights ($308). If you fly back after 6 nights, you pay $345. It'd be really hard to get an output like this on other search engines.