Archive for the ‘Airline Tickets’ Category

You can get discount airline tickets prices in the next few months through newly enhanced frequent flier programs from the Star Alliance and Delta SkyMiles coalitions.

As the economy continues to batter most businesses including airlines, major airlines are looking into cultivating closer relationships with loyal fliers by making their frequent flier programs more attractive.

This week, Continental Airlines joined the Star Alliance and decided to eliminate some of its requirements before travelers can enjoy their reward points. After the transition is completed, Continental customers can already enjoy their travel rewards without making the Saturday night requirement and can already earn elite membership miles on discount airline fares. Fellow Star Alliance members include US Airways and United Airlines.

Early this month, Delta SkyMiles was formed by Delta Air Lines and Northwest Airlines to merge their frequent flier accounts, with Delta launching a new elite program for travelers flying at least 25,000 miles yearly.

Basili Alukos, a Morningstar analyst who monitors airline stocks, said that frequent flier programs benefit loyal fliers through discount airline ticket prices, but these programs also benefit airlines in big ways, such as borrowing money from business partners and fliers and obtaining crucial travel and consumer information for free.

For instance, according to Alukos, American Express purchased last year $1 billion worth of SkyMiles through its credit card venture with Delta and pledged to buy another $1 billion over the next year.

Southwest Airlines, meanwhile, is finalizing a new scheme to earn revenues from its Rapid Rewards frequent flier program.

Alukos added frequent flier programs greatly benefit airlines, so they are doing their best to entice travelers to become loyal members. With these programs, airlines can sell future travel and can estimate travel demand.

Airlines have started making reward travel redemption more easily, according to Randy Petersen of InsideFlyer.com. He said that United will soon remove its fee of $75 to $100 for booking reward tickets within 3 weeks of the travel date.

In addition, airlines have also been making it easier for fliers to reach the elite status so they are encouraged to fly more often. Holders of co-branded can use spending on their cards to increase reward points.

Last May, American Airlines launched one-way reward tickets for travel at least 12,500 miles. This year, Delta and United have also started offering mileage discounts on award tickets, essentially offering discount airline ticket prices.

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You can get bargain airline tickets for the holidays if you are flexible and patient and are able to travel one or two days before or after most holiday travelers take their flights, according to Rick Seaney, founder of air travel expert FareCompare.com.

As an example, Seaney cited fares for non-stop round-trip flights from Newark in New Jersey to Chicago in Illinois for Thanksgiving. He said that round-trip fares offered on the web site of Continental Airlines start at $378 for those returning on Sunday, but start at $251 for those who can wait and return on Monday.

Melanie Nayer of CheapFlights.com added that based on past online airline ticketing for the Thanksgiving travel, fliers who can take the risk and who can wait until the last hour can get the cheapest rates. She said that fares drop dramatically on web-based travel sites the day preceding Thanksgiving.

Seaney is also advising travelers to keep current with fare promotions and subscribe to alerts that provide updates on fares in real-time. FareCompare.com is one that provides real-time updates on fares, with its use of software systems able to make fare searches for various flight origins and destinations. It tracks 500 airlines that serve over 270,000 travel markets around the world.

One example of a fare promotion this week is the 72-hour fourth-quarter sale of Southwest Airlines. If you are reading this before October 29, you can still buy bargain airline tickets at amounts starting at $25 for one-way trips and just $100 for one-way trips more than 1,000 miles. These are tickets for trips from December 2 to December 16 and for parts of January and February.

If this promotion has expired, the information is still useful for you. This means that if you travel a lot, there are a lot of fare promotions that you can take advantage of if you just check reputable online air travel sites from time to time.

According to George Hobica, founder of airfarewatchdog.com, said that airline fares can change as often as 3 times in a 24-hour period for some routes, so signing up for alerts can result in a lot of savings for frequent travelers.

Nayer is also advising travelers to check their frequent flier benefits, as some airlines offer free baggage fees for members who have reached certain points.

All in all, buying bargain airline tickets entails a combination of flexibility and patience in keeping updated with promos and price changes.

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Prices for airfare tickets for some routes and certain peak travel dates have been rising as airlines try to improve their revenues which have been suffering from operational cost pressures and the overall economic downturn.

The peak travel dates being targeted by airlines for imposing a surcharge of $10 are November 29th, the Sunday after Thanksgiving Day, and the second and third days of January.

Based on air travel history, the day after Thanksgiving and the Wednesday before Thanksgiving are the busiest days for air travel in the U.S., with the second and third days of January following in the ranking.

Among the airlines imposing premiums on these peak air travel days are American Airlines, United Airlines, US Airways Delta/Northwest, Continental and Southwest. Southwest Airlines though has been announcing that it will not be raising its advertised fun fares. Continental also has reduced the $10 other airlines are charging to $6 and $4 in certain routes.

According to airfare analysts, if the $10 hike is imposed by airlines on airfare tickets for other days, the hike would be the second increase imposed by the airline industry in two weeks and the fifth increase imposed this year.

Analysts also said that low-cost airlines such as Southwest and AirTran typically do not announce airfare hikes to match fare hikes by their bigger airline counterparts immediately, but it is possible they are also considering imposing surcharges.

In a media event conducted by Southwest Airlines, its chief executive Gary Kelly said that Southwest have record loads in October and ticket sales for travel in November and December are strong, but he reiterated that the rise in oil prices this week to $80 per barrel is a great concern.

Southwest though said it has been imposing modest increases to offset higher costs, and it is not planning on increasing fares just for certain travel days.

It was American Airlines which started the airfare hikes, when it imposed up to $16 for some roundtrip tickets. The other legacy airlines followed quickly, including Continental, United, US Airways and Delta/Northwest.

According to airfare processing system operators, most airfare hikes happen during the last days of the week and most sales and discounting occur at the start of the week. They also observed that airfare tickets have peak travel surcharges not only for travels for Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day, but also for spring break, Memorial Day and Christmas.

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