Are there any ways to still fly for cheap

It is my understanding that air courier jobs don’t exist anymore, and that flying standby is something you can only do if you are family of someone who works on an airline. Are there any other tips or tactics that work to fly on the cheap?

Flying already IS cheap.

You can certainly sign up for one of the websites that will spam you with good deals all day every day. Some even let you specify where and when you want to go and will keep hammering for a better price and tell you when they find it.

Yeah, I’m also questioning the premise of the question. When was flying cheaper than it is now?
If you want to fly cheaper, you can take the bus and make airplane sounds.

Just drive the bus over a really steep hill.

Airfare is often cheaper if you fly on a Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday. Plus, as far as I can tell, most airlines run sales on Tuesday through Thursday, so if you book your flight then, it’s cheaper.

Yes, credit card intro offers with no annual fee for the first year for frequent flier miles are a great way to fly for (nearly) free. I have been doing it for about 5 years and still have more free plane tickets than I can even use with more on the way. I don’t pay for personal tickets at all. I have gotten three 50,000 mile deals from Southwest alone and still have 110,000 miles left just for them (a round-trip Wanna Get Away ticket costs anywhere from about 15,000 to 50,000 points depending on where you want to go and when). I have gotten similar deals with American and others. American let me go from Boston to Hawaii round trip for a ground total of 35,000 miles and $10 two years ago. I have also gone to Las Vegas and many other fun places for essentially no money.

There is a catch but it isn’t much of one if you do it right. You have to watch for the really good offers that pop up. 20,000 bonuses are always available but they aren’t very useful because that often isn’t enough even for one round-trip ticket to anywhere. You have to watch for the 50,000 mile offers and grab those even if you don’t need the miles right away. You also need a fairly high credit score to get the really good offers and the ability to put $1000 - $3000 on the card within three months and then pay it off right away. That last part is key because they are counting on the fact that most people don’t do that and will pay dearly in interest for those purchases over time. I never do that. I pay off my credit cards weekly until I hit the minimum total charges required to get the points and then either cancel the card if it has an annual fee after the first year or just have it converted into a free version of the card. Either use the points within a year or two or make an occasional small purchase on the card to keep your account active.

It sounds like a lot of work but it really isn’t. It takes about 2 minutes to apply for a card online and, as long as you set it up for online payments, that can be done in less than a minute. In my experience, Southwest is the best airline to have lots of frequent flyer points with. Their Wanna Get Away deals are much cheaper in points than most especially if you fly at one of the less popular times of day, they still offer free baggage checking and the conversion fee to redeem points is only $10 round-trip. They don’t go everywhere but they do have decent coverage for most of the U.S. and some other foreign North American routes.

My wife and I each have a Frontier airlines CC. I put pretty much put all my purchases on it. And pay it off every month. That’s a big key.

For us at least there are plenty of bonuses. Including absolutely free flights, free baggage checks and easier check in, shorter lines. Upgrade to stretch seating when it’s available too. If Frontier goes there, we don’t pay for anything.

All these posts are useful for domestic flying. International travel, especially during peak periods, is still expensive. I need to get to Europe in July and it’s costing me a fortune.

that’s because you’ll be sitting on a plane which cost the airlines hundreds of millions of dollars to buy, and will burn thousands of gallons of fuel to get you where you need to go. Oh, and the people getting you there like to be paid for their time.

Screw’em. Just keep those free tickets coming and I will be a loyal customer to anyone that wants to give them to me.

It is possible to beat big businesses at their own game and I do it all the time. Citizens Bank recently sent me a deal in which I can open up an account across the street, deposit $500 and get a matching $500 put straight into it. I don’t need another checking account but I always love the sight of five Benjamins stacked in a neat row. That is going to be one of the shortest lived accounts they have ever seen. As soon as they pony up, that is the end of that relationship. They can blame their own marketing department if they don’t like it.

Good deals like that are not rare but you have to know how to spot them and how not to fall into the traps they set to recoup their money from them.

That may be true out of the US, but globally it’s cheap. And causing problems. as more of the teeming masses are able to afford flying, the industry is at pains to keep up with demand. This was cited as a cause for last December’s crash of that Indonesia Air flight to Singapore. That flight was against regulations, was not officially permitted, but the airline was scheduling more flights than permitted due to demand while authorities looked the other way (until that crash). And BBC said demand in Indonesia alone was growing so fast that another 10,000 pilots would be needed in just the next few years, and who’s going to train that many so fast?

You’re flying during the height of summer vacation season, for both the U.S. and Europe; I have to imagine that’s not helping the price of your ticket.

MichaelEmouse:

Circa 1998-2005 or so. Way better deals available back then than anything I’ve seen in years.

It’s not quite the same, but my Wife and I will be flying to Mexico in a year for free.

It’s not at all the same thing, given that the summer isn’t the peak season for tourism in Mexico.

I could do it any time of year. No restrictions on that.

Still, for the most part, people aren’t flying for free.

Well it is a long way. Should the airline lose money to get you there?

Do you really expect fares, now, to be the same as they were over a decade ago?

Counter intuitively, not buying a round-trip ticket will often save you money. Also, try pricing tickets out of secondary-sized airports.

Andrew Hyde Article

Andrew was able to go through an exercise of using the above tactics to reduce the flying cost from $1,999 (direct from Denver to Heathrow ) to $425 plus taxes and fees by booking a multi-city flight and flying into Dublin.

I replicated the results when pricing a trip from Toronto to London, and I almost always book one-way tickets exclusively now.