How do you find the cheapest destination? About This Page:

[Carousel96]

I know how to find cheap flights when I know where I'm going.
But I've heard of folks who say "I figure out what the cheapest place is to fly to, and plan a vacation there."
How do you do that?
Our school district has a Spring Break next year for the first time in ages, but we need to keep any travel plans cheap. So I thought it would be fun to see where we could go.

[Colexis Mom]

I would sign up with a few airlines for their deals. They usually email something out once a week on airfare sales/deals. You should be able to tell from those listings where the cheapest (and more expensive) places are to fly from your homebase. Keep in mind, around spring break times, prices go up everywhere, due to the increased demand!

[Starbright]

I've been told to go to Sell Off Vacations. But you can't plan ahead...they are last min deals Being a planner, that doesn't sit well with me. Also itravel2000.

[chezp]

If I'm looking for a cheap place to go, then I check on the low price airlines' websites over here for a particular weekend and see what comes up with good flight times and a reasonable price. That's how we ended up going to Vienna for the weekend in March. I narrowed it down using those criteria and, of the three options we had left, I went for that one.

[Huntermom]

Go off season or on the tail end/beginning of a season. Go during a risky weather season.

In later March, you could probably get some good ski deals in NH/Maine/VT. It's at the end of the season and you may not have the best conditions. We also would go to places like Cape Cod where you can't swim at that time and everything may not be opened but you can find lots of other things to do and it's not crowded.

[Carousel96]

Originally Posted by Colexis Mom

Keep in mind, around spring break times, prices go up everywhere, due to the increased demand!

I'm hoping we're early. I looked into one possible destination and the rates are still good. But they go up the following week, and again each of the next two.

[Carousel96]

Originally Posted by chezp

If I'm looking for a cheap place to go, then I check on the low price airlines' websites over here for a particular weekend and see what comes up with good flight times and a reasonable price.

This sounds like what I want to do, but I don't know how.

I guess to clarify my origninal Q -- every site I know of requires me to enter a destination.

Is there any site where I can type in that I want to leave Mpls on date X, but have it give me destination options and prices?

You hear of people who say "We never thought of going to ____ but the airfare was cheap and we had a great time." If I only search for destinations I think of, I can overlook so many great places to go.

[MichaelF]

I would rather spend a little more on a flight and go where I wanted as opposed to going to the cheapest desitiation. When purchasing a flight I usually go to expedia and they will give prices of all carries and then I book the best time/price with a major carrier itself and not expedia.

[Starbright]

Originally Posted by Carousel96

I guess to clarify my origninal Q -- every site I know of requires me to enter a destination.

Is there any site where I can type in that I want to leave Mpls on date X, but have it give me destination options and prices?

I haven't found anything like that but would love to find out one too. I guess I just have to wrack my brain trying to find places I want to go and then start to look at those. Unless you sign up for the airlines and they send out seat sale info. I know West Jet does that and I keep getting updates from them. I don't know if Delta does that or not.
We have looked at some all inclusives and with airprices going up those aren't bad deals either.

[B.M.]

I use hotwire and while I can't do what your asking (I wish they did do that)- I can look under their specials for things like $30 flights and such.... and like Marnie said once your registered with them they will send out emails listing specials from your home airport..... About the cheapest flights I've ever seen out of our home airport were to Vegas for about twenty bucks.... But the dates were random middle of the week dates.... I know you said you could overlook places by just randomly selecting places to check on; but actually most deals are out of and too major airports.... the smaller less known places/airports tend to be more expensive.... but I'm sure there are exceptions....

[Huntermom]

Do you do Groupon? I just got an email from them that they are combining with Expedia to offer travel deals. I haven't had the chance to look into it but it might be worthwhile.

[Straitlover]

On Travelocity, if you go under the Travel Deals section, you can pick a departure location, and it will pull up different deals in certain categories (Beach, Best of Vegas, Top destinations, etc). Might not be exactly what you are looking for, but maybe it will help.

[Papa Mouse]

This article on SW might give you an idea.


How to Find Cheap Fares on Southwest Airlines eHow

Cheap flights, hotels, destinations - Bing Travel

On shorter flights you might want to consider seating in the real of the plane (tail section). Some airlines offer these seats at the lowest prices and discounts. Ask.

A few sites have seen mentioned above for cheap fares. I added a couple of many more that are out there including Expedia, Priceline, etc. Use ALL of them to find your lowest price.
Discount Airline Tickets, Affordable Flights, & Low-Cost Airfare from Travelzo


If you are looking for these sites interchange your search box to include the words Cheap, inexpensive, discounts, low fare, coupons, pin codes, etc., etc.

There was a T.V. news article a few months back on purchasing unused tickets from others. Many tickets are not resellable, exchangeable, etc. to another person even if the flight has not left (even at a future time) so beware. This refers mainly to person to person tickets not to authorized travel agents.

The first "hint" is if a person has extra tickets at a discount because uncle and aunt Charlie are sick, a death in the family, etc.

In California if you are using another person, such as a friend or travel agent, make your check payable to the airlines, not the name/person of the agent or their agent. In case of problems, going out of business, skip town , etc. the liability falls upon who the check was made out to. Best it be the airlines.

[Dave Marx]

There are several ways to approach this. One is "tendencies." From your airport there are usually sweet spot destinations. Here in DTW territory, you can often get a great Delta fare to Atlanta (Delta's home hub), and Orlando comes a pretty close second. Spirit has its major hub in Fort Lauderdale. Again, consistently low rates (and Orlando comes a pretty close second - are you detecting a pattern?). So, when you know what destinations are typically good from your airport, set up fare alerts (Kayak.com is good for this) to wait for the best deal on those best destinations. Another set of tendencies is day of week and time of day. Again, sites like Kayak.com have tools for tracking that kind of rate trend.

You may have noted that the sweet spot airports are often major hubs. If your airline seems to have a lot of flights to California that stopover in Denver or Salt Lake City, consider a vacation somewhere near Denver or Salt Lake City.

Despite old wisdom to the contrary, airlines these days are often charging less for direct flights than flights with stopovers/connections, even when they offer both direct and multi-stop flights to the same destination. Why would they charge more for a flight that includes the inconvenience of a connection? Different time of day, perhaps, or simply that fares have been cut so close to the bone that the cost of airport fees may be all that's left. A flight that visits two airports has to pay twice as many fees as a direct flight.

Be careful of destinations that have small airports and/or few airlines serving them. All too often, this means airfares will never come down. The most popular destinations often also have the greatest airline competition and the lower fares that go with them. This is when it may pay to look for an alternate airport some distance from the destination. Heading to the Maine coast? If Portland is too expensive, it may pay to fly into Manchester NH or Logan in Boston, and drive from there.

There are historical patterns with certain destinations at certain times of year. You can go to your local newspaper's web site and search for travel stories highlighting bargain destinations during the time you're traveling. It'll give you an idea of what the future may bring.

Watch lodging rates as well as airfares - the $100 you save on airfare may turn into $200 extra for the hotel. The airlines often compete to take folks to the most popular seasonal destinations, but once there, the hotel operators are usually charging high season rates.

One year, Jennifer and I wanted to go away over the Thanksgiving weekend without paying through the nose. Our solution was to drive to Canada, where that week is very off-season (it doesn't hurt that Canada is 35 miles from here, and that there's a lovely winery district along the north shore of Lake Erie).