Second, the more you fly, the better you get at using tips and tricks to get good fares.

It’s not your imagination: Airplane seats really have gotten smaller over the years. In the past few decades, average seat width has narrowed by nearly two inches, and average seat pitch (the distance from the back of one seat to the back of the next seat) has shrunk by more than three inches. The goal isn’t so much sadism (but maybe?) as it is

general, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Saturday are the cheapest days to travel. Friday, Sunday, and Monday are usually the most expensive days. Why? Airlines trying to gouge business travelers. As we’ll go over in Chapter 7, businesspeople generally prefer to fly out on Sundays or Mondays and return home on Fridays. They rarely travel in the middle of

When an airline advertises a sale, especially on international flights, it’s almost never worth your time. Think about how marketing works at its core: A company is trying to convince you to buy something. When an airline has $950 fares to Paris, it has to convince people it’s a good deal. But $250 fares to Paris need no marketing dollars. A fare

It’s impossible to say precisely when a specific deal will pop up. The best deals Scott’s Cheap Flights found in 2019—$98 roundtrip to Hawaii on March 4, $280 roundtrip to China on June 27, $177 roundtrip to Barcelona on December 4—came with no advance notice.

Researchers found that, compared to domestic travel, planning an international trip was twice as likely to cause stress.

The 160 economy seats at $271 apiece would generate $43,360 in total revenue. The 55 premium economy seats, currently selling for $2,465, would bring in $135,575. And the 45 business class seats, selling for $5,071 each, would generate $228,195 in revenue. In other words, regular economy seats account for just 11 percent of the $400,000 American

KEY TAKEAWAYS Flipping the normal way you search for flights (the Destination First Method) and making price the top priority (the Flight First Method) is the key to finding cheap airfare. The fewer must-haves on your list, the larger your cheap flights bull’s-eye and the more likely you are to get a good deal. Cheap flights don’t have to be

Capital Airlines, struggling to turn a profit using the CAB’s standard airfare rate, proposed creating a new class of service on its New York–Chicago flights, “air coach.” Rather than flying 40-seat planes and charging 6 cents per passenger-mile, Capital asked for permission to put 60 seats on its planes and charge passengers 4 cents per mile. The