How to Fly Free: 10 Tips

Low cost air travel is good, and free air travel is even better. And although it may seem like a free flight ticket - or at least almost A free flight ticket is just a dream, experienced travelers and air travel experts know a few secrets that will help turn it into reality.

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The data of the Bureau of Transport Statistics states: the average price of airfare within the United States at the end of last year was $ 363. It turns out that a free flight is a huge savings.

Get a good discount on the flight is possible, but you need to know a few secrets. In the past decade, a large group of insiders, experts, and those who are just watching flights have emerged. In order to get a free ticket, you need to be part of this world - a kind of matrix of air travel.

To do this, you need to read insider blogs, forums, chat rooms and wikis, view airline accounts on social networks, subscribe to loyalty programs and programs for those that fly frequently, and also monitor prices on different sites and aggregators.

Fortunately, experts exist to share their findings. Below - 10 tips, how to get a free ticket.

1. Find the right sites

Almost none of the “insiders” is looking for discounts on Expedia, Orbitz or Kayak. It seems that the following rule exists: the more people know about the site, the less likely it is that it will offer low prices. Airlines' own websites offer lower fares than these search giants.

If you want to search for flights on other sites, and not on airline sites, experts say that it is better to do it on lesser-known resources. This is Skyscanner, Momondo, Airfarewatchdog, ITA Matrix. The latest on the list - the insiders' favorite - makes it easy to change dates and routes to find the cheapest options.

A few more good sites: View from The Wing, The Flight Deal, ExpertFlyer, or the FlyerTalk forums.

2. Use bonuses for opening a credit card

“Credit card bonuses are the easiest way to earn miles quickly,” says Sam Huang, founder of Top Miles. “You can find quite a lot of promotions for travel credit cards.” Huang says card opening promotions are at their all-time peak.

“Many credit cards offer 50 miles or more. What is the value of these miles? For 60 miles, you can fly one way from New York to Frankfurt on Singapore Airlines (more like a hotel room than an airplane cabin),” says Huang.

Sites such as GOBankingRates, MileCards and The Points Guy are tracking maps that offer bonuses — sometimes so solid that you can get some free flights for simply signing in the right place.

But there is one “but”: as a rule, you need to have a good or perfect credit history in order to take advantage of this offer. In addition, these cards may have a service charge. And if you irresponsibly approach the payment of your loan - that is, you will not pay monthly bills in full and in time - your interest payments may turn out to be more than the amount saved.

3. Take advantage of the compensation for the "removal" from the flight

By this point you need to prepare for the trip - so you increase the chances to save. Be prepared to be “taken off” from an airplane, and you can get a truly free flight.

“Getting a free ticket for being kicked off a flight is more common today than it was 5 to 10 years ago because planes now tend to fly full, making them more likely to have to kick passengers off the flight,” says Scott Keyes, founder Scott's Cheap Flights.

Kiz has done this dozens of times and created a clear 5-step method so that you can be removed from the flight and given a free ticket.

• Calculate your withdrawal odds. View your seat card before checking in for a flight. If there are only a few left or not at all, you have a pretty good chance.
• Come to the gate area in advance. Kiz recommends that you arrive 30-45 minutes before landing.
• Sit as close as possible to the agent desk. Be carefull. “Many times I got ahead of other potential applicants when I sat closer and went up earlier,” Keys says.
• SpuCall the trigger on time. According to Keys, airlines typically start their offers at $250 and increase them by $50 every 5 minutes until there are enough takers. “Typically, I pull the trigger at the very beginning—on the first sentence,” he says. However, often when landing, he asks to raise his offer to the level of other applicants. “Most of the time they agree,” Keys says.
• Get more out of your offer. Recent changes to the rules of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) have obliged airlines that remove passengers from flights against their will to provide such passengers with a compensation of up to $ 1300. Airlines usually want to avoid such fines, so you can put forward some requirements - for example, a more direct route or a place in the first class. You can familiarize yourself with your rights in case of removal from the flight in federal government regulations.

4. Sniff crazy stocks

You can find a free ticket by viewing the crazy promotions. Gilbert Ott, the founder of God Save the Points, told how he once flew for free on a private plane from Boston to Washington, DC, finding a promo code that offered a free flight.

“It was meant for people who were part of a very expensive loyalty program, but the app accepted the code and we successfully booked the flight without paying a cent,” he said.

Look for coupons for points for free flights on the Internet and follow major airlines in social networks for promotions. If you become a member of any chat or blog mentioned in this article, you can also receive inside information regarding new promotions. However, experts recognize that getting a free flight in this way is extremely rare.

5. Let your miles work for you

Make a reservation right away: this method implies purchase ticket for free. But if you are free in spirit, flexible and love to travel, it is worth it.

As a rule, if you are already a part of this matrix of flights, you can track routes that earn twice or three times more miles, and book cheap flights just to earn miles. Such offers usually appear when airlines open new routes or want to popularize existing ones. Thus, they themselves create opportunities for earning extra miles.

Find the right balance between the cost of the flight and the miles accrued for it, and you will get the same as in the “buy one, get the second one for free” campaign.

6. Correctly plan your purchases on time.

In order to properly use the miles offered by a credit card, you need some knowledge. Jason Moore from Zero To Travel wrote that once he received a free ticket for a plane just for opening a new credit card and using it to pay taxes. This combination of bonus miles per subscription and the number of miles received from this “purchase” allowed him to get a free ticket for 15 minutes.

Think of computers, televisions, appliances, or even repairs through a contractor who accepts credit cards. Such large purchases — of course, paid instantly from your checking account — can help you get a free flight immediately.

Obviously not worth buying what you do not need. But if your pipe is flowing, and the plumber accepts credit cards for payment, then the miles received can alleviate the discomfort from paying the bill.

7. Buy one through the airlines

One of Gilbert's favorite ways to find good deals on air travel is online shopping at airline shopping portals. It looks like this: you enter your account on the airline's website, go to their shopping portal and earn miles just for what you buy at your favorite store.

“It's kind of like a referral program,” Gilbert says. Sometimes retailers offer 25 or more miles for every dollar spent. “If you buy a laptop from your favorite online retailer, it could be enough for a free flight,” he says. “It’s so easy and you can earn thousands of miles and more than one free flight when you shop online.”

As in the previous tip, you have to spend money to get a ticket. But if you buy what you need in any case, so why not earn miles from it.

8. Take advantage of "erroneous tariffs"

In a world where even airlines may become victims of hackers, erroneous tariffs are the name for tariffs so low that they seem to have been created by mistake. Sometimes it happens. In any case, they happen more often than you might think, says Janice Vo from Solo Traveler.

In and Juan recommend watching the site Secret flyingwhich specializes in finding such fares. As in the case of miles, the essence of this method is to “buy one, get the second for free,” and it means making long-distance flights in the second class.

“For example, I have to fly from Taipei to San Jose, which is about 11 miles round trip, for $165,” Huang says. He noted that 12 miles is enough to get a one-way ticket within the United States.

9. Get a ticket without fuel

With this trick you will not get a free ticket, but you can get very cheap.

A ticket with the cancellation of the cost of fuel is a little difficult. As a rule, airlines charge a separate fee for fuel - you will see this part of the cost of the ticket when detailing the payment. Sometimes this part of the ticket is the most expensive.

A ticket without the cost of fuel is when airlines remove payment for fuel from the price due to a certain magic combination of flights - for example, adding the third stage of the journey to a ticket on the 2 side, even if you have no intention to fly back. On his website, God Save the Points, Gilbert explains this method in more detail. Enter fuel dump airline tickets at Google to get more info.

It is in this situation that websites like FlyerTalk help you, as this type of ticket is not advertised, and the airlines allegedly intentionally monitor people on the Internet who are looking for such fares in order to reduce the total cost.

10. Open a checking account that earns miles

Some banks charge miles for opening a checking account. For example, Juan says that $ 50 thousand on BankDirect account earn 60 thousands of miles per year. You only pay $ 144 ($ 12 per month) for account maintenance.

He believes that this is “an excellent offer, since 60 thousands of miles is at least an 2 flight on the 2 side in second grade to any point in the United States.”

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