4 Airlines Not to Overlook When Hunting for Low Fares
As I noted in my travel resolutions post on Monday, I’m thinking about taking my older girls (ages 8 & 10) to Reykjavic next month. As I began to search for airfares, I realized that flights exclusively on Icelandair were not included in the search results on Kayak. They only had multiple airline combinations that were neither time-efficient nor inexpensive.
In fact, when I first began to search for flights on the travel search engines, I could only find fares that were more than $1,000 round-trip for flights with one connection. When I went to Icelandair’s website, I found round-trip flights for $694, which would save me at least $300 per person.
Related: 5 New Ways to Save Money on Plane Tickets
While more airlines are included today in the travel search engines, like Expedia and Kayak, than a few years ago, there are still some notable exclusions. So, to save money, you’ll want to make sure you search for flights on the airline websites below if you’re flying between two cities serviced by these airlines.
Icelandair: You’ll find lots of flights to destinations in Europe that go through Reykjavic, and you can even stopover in Iceland for up to seven days before you travel on to cities like Paris and Madrid at no extra cost. The website makes it very easy to find alternative travel days to save money too.
Ryanair: You can find limited fares on Kayak, but you may find them for less on the Ryanair website. I searched for a fare between Cork, Ireland and London. It was $81 on Kayak and $62.50 on the Ryanair website. Ryanair does charge for services, like printing out boarding passes, so keep that in mind. This airline primarily flies short hops within Europe.
Related article: 7 Ways to Find the Best Holiday Airfares
Southwest: It’s fairly well-known that you can’t find Southwest fares in the major travel search engines. Kayak pulls up flight times, but won’t tell you the fares. It’s not always cheapest to fly Southwest, but it’s always worth a look on the Southwest website just to make sure you’re not missing a better fare.
Allegiant: This airline services smaller markets and alternative airports, like Hagerstown, MD, which is about an hour from Washington, DC, and it’s definitely worth a look at Allegiant’s website if you’re flexible with your airport and travel dates. From Las Vegas to Chicago (Rockford), I found a fare that was nearly half the ticket price I saw on Kayak with Spirit Airlines.
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Is there an airline that you like to fly that has fares either not listed in the major search engines or that has better fares listed on their own websites? Let me know n the comments section below.
Photo Credit: Eugene Delaney