How to get a cheaper flight
I haven’t tried this yet but it looks like a good idea. I bought miles from my sister for a couple hundred bucks. It was way cheaper than buying a ticket so if you can find someone generous enough to give away miles for cash that works well too…now there’s an idea for a great website. Have a middleman connect cash for tickets.
My co-blogger at Crooked Timber Ted Barlow points out that it is possible to save money on last-minute flights by booking a hotel room with your flight even if you don’t need nor plan to use a hotel room.
I recently made a one-night trip from Houston to Chicago with very little notice. I managed to save almost $200 off of the lowest-price plane ticket by adding a hotel room at a Super 8 outside of Gary, IN, which I didn’t use.
A quick look at Travelocity shows me that it was no fluke- for brief trips with very little notice, it’s much cheaper to book a flight to Chicago if you book a room at a Super 8 at the same time. At the time that I originally wrote this post, Delta would sell a flight from Houston to Chicago for $616 without a hotel room, $340 with. If I needed to leave tomorrow, I could buy a ticket on American for $606 without a hotel room, or $350 with.
