Photo: Color treatment by Gluekit Buying a plane ticket has never been easier — or more complicated. Online travel agencies claim to offer the greatest fares; fare aggregators claim to offer the greatest selection of online travel agencies. Low-cost carriers promise to fly you to the moon for a pittance — but, oh, you want to check a bag and pick a seat too? That’ll be $100 extra.
Good for: Points/miles minutiae, fare alerts customizable by route, and a daily roundup of the internet’s top-50 deals.The Points Guy Runner-up: The aforementioned Chase Sapphire Reserve or American Express Platinum, which earns five times the points for every dollar spent on air travel.This is the most-user-friendly search on the market. And if you want to go somewhere for cheap but you’re not sure where, Tarik of Secret Flying recommends Google Flights’ Explore tool. Simply plug in your origin, travel dates, and budget cap, then load the map, and it’ll show you routes all over the world that fit those parameters.
Go to Travel-Hacking School Sign up for NomadFly, a free five-day flight-hacking email course created by former travel agent Beck Power. For $7, download her strategy-packed eBook Flight Route Hacking. To Book Two Vacations in One, Add a Stopover Unlike a layover, a stopover lasts more than 24 hours and gives you time to do a little sightseeing. Many airlines allow free or nominally priced stopovers on long-haul flights; some even foot your hotel bill. Here, courtesy of Flystein co-founders Vladislav Protasov and Roman Kalyakin, a sampling of airline two-for-ones originating from New York City.
At the last minute so that hopefully they are sold out and one then has a solid excuse to miss thanksgiving.
Ever better: don't. We are in a climate emergency.
It's a little out of date, NomadFly doesn't seem to be in operation anymore
lnbj