A recent spate of airline mistake fares means you can see the world at a fraction of the cost.
As much as I love to travel, I often think to myself that the exorbitant cost of airfare is just straight up depressing.
Fuel surcharges, airport taxes, and just plain ole price-gouging can make searching for plane tickets a harrowing experience (or even make jetsetting completely out of reach for some). I speak from experience: ridiculous airfares have caused me to shelve many a dream trip. Jaunts to faraway places like Namibia and New Zealand, The Seychelles and Suriname have been put on hold until the cost of getting there is more palatable to my wallet.
However, there is a bright spot in an otherwise grim situation. Airline pricing mistakes, where glitches in online booking systems have made it as cheap as $250 USD to fly roundtrip from New York to Abu Dhabi, seem to be increasing in frequency. And the number of renegade websites and communities poised to share these fleeting miracles with hot-footed travellers is on the rise, too.
A sample of recent airline pricing stuff-ups is enough to make the explorer in you clap their hands with glee:
- New York City to Nairobi, Kenya R/T for $400 USD
- Toronto to Sao, Paolo, Brazil R/T for $500 USD
- Los Angeles to Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam R/T for $550 USD (!!)
It’s error exploitation at its best, but a small win for those hoping to go on an epic adventure for relatively little money. Those who will benefit most are a) those who live near or are willing to travel to major hubs like New York City, Los Angeles, or London and/or b) are flexible in terms of dates and destination (heck, give me a cheap plane ticket and I will fly *anywhere*).
Here are a few of my favourite places to find glitch fares:
Websites: Secret Flying and The Flight Deal
Bookmark these ASAP! Both serve up multiple travel deals daily.
Webforums/Discussion boards: Nomadness Travel Tribe, FlyerTalk (specifically the Mileage Run Deal forum), and TravelNoire’s TN District
These webforums host close-knit communities where like-minded travellers share flight deals and insider info. FlyerTalk and Nomadness are free to join, while TN District has a subscription fee of $8.99 USD/month or $60 USD/year. The Nomadness and TN District platforms are invaluable as they not only provide mistake fare info, but also facilitate meetups between travellers who will be in a given glitch fare destination at the same time.
Social media: Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.
Never underestimate the power of your social media network! Not only do I follow all of the websites and communities above via their social media profiles, I also follow a number of travel writers/bloggers/junkies who are often kind enough share glitch fare goodness in their feeds.
Another useful tool: ITA Google Matrix and Google Flights
ITA Google Matrix, the Rolls Royce of airfare search engines, makes Orbitz and Expedia look like Cinderella’s ugly stepsisters. Matrix will allow you to do a super thorough, super refined search, giving you the option to see a calendar of the month’s lowest fares, change the country of sale (which can potentially save you mucho $$$), and quickly and easily find the cheapest arrival/departure airport for your journey.
Google Flights, for its part, has a nifty world map that lists fares by destination.
So no excuses. Never miss a glitch fare again! With a little bit of sleuthing you, too, can find yourself on a plane to the locale of your dreams… and for a fraction of the price.
What other tools or strategies do you employ to find cheap airfare?
57 Comments
Use the Flight Deal, Secret Flying, and Airfarewatchdog along with Twitter mobile notifications. You get notifications immediately which is invaluable since these are so time sensitive.
Thanks for this, Oneika! I’m usually a Skyscanner addict but they’ve really not been very good lately, with the really good deals suddenly “no long available” in the time it takes to click between pages. I’m gutted TheFlightDeal is North America centric, but I’ve bookmarked SecretFlying, and fingers crossed I’ll find something soon!
Totally bookmarking all these sites. My available PTO is small compared to the rest of the world, but for ticket prices like that, I’d totally go on an unpaid trip!
I love glitch fares! I recently scored a flight from NYC to Johannesburg for a little over $300 USD roundtrip. I booked it without even thinking because when am I ever going to find flights to South Africa that cheap?!?! I’m headed out there in 3 weeks and I couldn’t be more excited! 😀 Also, “The Flight Deal” and “The Points Guy” are 2 great websites to browse if you’re looking to score a deal and don’t have a specific destination in mind.
This is awesome, thanks for sharing! Definitely bookmarking these and scouring them from now on.
Gah.. We have yet to take advantage of these glitch fares. Bookmarking those sites now!
I love reading about flight glitches! I can’t necessarily take them these days ‘cos I have a school age son….but I still hear about them LOL! My fave person to get info from is a really fun guy called Lucky from “One Mile at a Time” so I actually saw the Denmark and China scenario.
I’m registered with quite a few websites at the moment so recently saw WOW from Iceland flying to the US for as little as $199. I’m not planning to go to the US this year, but this is sorely tempting….! Here’s the link: http://us2.campaign-archive1.com/?u=cfa47c79110f45a8f68fab75b&id=1aacd19d93&e=9968e0a1c6
Just click in and change the lang LOL!
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Awesome websites! I didn’t know about half of them 🙂 Sadly I’m not always super flexible with dates, but will certainly look for flights for my birthday at the end of the year through this! Thanks for sharing!
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