Finding a Cheap Airline Ticket in a Pinch

I’ve known a few people in my lifetime that had that deep rare gift for finding discounts and the I made that even more mysterious. When you add the availability of coupons if you dig for them, web offers and the like, cheap travel for college students is really accessible.

There is sort of an art in finding a cheap airplane ticket but the savvier you are on the web the better. There are sites galore, craigslist, ebay-yes folks sell tickets on there, not to mention or exclude experion, priceline and travelocity. And I love Shatner, miss Boston Legal terribly, and so try to use priceline whenever I can.

Recently I was going to Portugal from New York City, acutally from Newark Airport, which is in Jersey across from the city. I needed to find the cheapest ticket I could with the economy, but it was a wedding and I could not miss it.

So here is Mark’s find a cheap airfare basic tactics:

First, you need a baseline. I went to travelocity and checked flights. I wanted to see how cheaply I could go with no work. Sometimes you won’t save enough to justify all the work.

Second, check ebay. I found a ticket that someone was selling for Madrid, but it was too far away, and would have required getting from Madrid to Portugal. That negated the savings.

Third, craigslist.com.
I use three tactics on craigslist. One is I post an ad simply ASKING if anyone has the ticket I need in case anyone has one that they want to sell or exchange.

Second I look in “et cetera jobs” for “courier” and see if anyone needs a person to run something to Lisbon. This is more prevalent than you realize. Often somebody needs an important envelope taken to a firm or individual who doesn’t want to risk it with customs. It’s important enough for a plane fare, and hotel and even meals in the foreign country. And in this economy don’t rule out barter for a ticket on craigslist. these are my primary target methods. but with craigslist I make sure I post in all nearby areas. I live in New York, so I also include Philadelphia, New Jersey, and Connecticut in my ads. You have to post each place individually because Craig wants to keep things local.

I never learned how to get a cheap airplane ticket in college thought friends got good at it. But I have learned a few tricks just by stumbling blindly through the airline industry and from crafty friends.

The final result was that I got contacted from craigslist Connecticutt from a person who had a voucher for Iberian Airways for 400.00 and needed to sell or barter it. It was for the dates I needed (but expired shortly thereafter) so we actually worked a barter of me fixing his laptop and doing some remote ongoing maintenance and I got the voucher. The total for the ticket was 520, so it cost me 120 plus time. Not bad. $400 of legwork paid off. Thanks to the internet. Hope this article was helpful to you, and best wishes.

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