
The Ultimate Airfare Hacking Guide - ajpatel
http://www.nomadicmatt.com/travel-blogs/the-ultimate-travel-hacking-guide/
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sneak
This is a pretty simple and cursory overview - hardly "ultimate".

Also, having seen some actual creative bookings (not full-on penetrations,
either), calling this "hacking" is a stretch too. Google things like "fuel
dumping" to start learning about actual airfare hacks.

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mcargian
Agreed, and it's a little strange to mention using airline miles to reduce
your costs, but then fly Astraeus which doesn't award miles. There are lots of
better ways to "hack" your travel than spending time on the sites he listed.

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JoachimSchipper
I suddenly have an interest in this, since I'll be travelling quite a bit
(Amsterdam-Vienna). Do you have any hints? I've had trouble finding anything
that actually saves money.

To add at least a little value: matrix.itasoftware.com has found trips (e.g.
Amsterdam-Tallinn) for me that the local (Dutch) travel sites didn't. I was
pleasantly surprised by this.

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jrockway
The information about AA is not quite true. No status gives you automatic
upgrades. Having Platinum status gets you the ability to upgrade domestic
flights with "stickers" (which you earn by flying and can buy), but it's all
space-available. You won't know if you're in first class perhaps until
everyone has boarded and they are closing the gate. You get no official
upgrades on international flights except the cash + miles upgrade. If you get
the next status up (100,000 miles required), then you start getting the real
benefits. You get unlimited free domestic upgrades (space-available, of
course), and you get 8 systemwide upgrades that you can apply to any ticket to
upgrade to the next class of service for free (space-available). It's nice if
you buy a cheap business class ticket ($1000 half-round trip to London, for
example) and upgrade to first class. (But of course, business and first on
American are not nearly as nice as business and first on Cathay or BA, and
your AA status gets you nothing there.)

Anyway, if you want to go the elite status route, you can't be a price
comparer. You have to value the benefits you'll get with your status over
saving $100 on your next flight. Because 33,000 miles on United, 33,000 miles
on Delta, and 33,000 miles on American gets you pretty much nothing. But
100,000 on one of those gets you quite a lot. (I personally lean towards the
Oneworld airlines because AA chose good partners. Even if you are flying on
AA, you can still use BA's lounge. And they are very nice. Cathay's lounge in
Hong Kong is also amazing. Shower rooms, nap rooms, etc. Great way to kill a
layover after a 15 hour overnight flight :)

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e2daipi
> _"On our example, this doesn’t work because we are going from the United
> States to England and the English Pound is worth more than the US dollar.
> Additionally, the Iceland Krona is not worth less than a dollar. However, if
> we were going the reverse way, this would work."_

Not quite. See <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arbitrage>

I think the way you are looking at it could cost you a bit of money if you are
not careful.

