Get Started Flying for Free

"I'm sorry sir, but you don't qualify for any of those low fares that you read about."

"That's right, because you are not staying over Saturday night, your fare increases from $500 to $2400."

"I'm sorry, you can't get your money back even though you have to cancel that flight."

How often have we heard statements like these from the airlines and our travel agents? Of course, they are said with such authority that we end up believing them.

However, we are being severely misled by almost all of those "voices of authority" in the travel industry.

There are many perfectly legal ways to get great bargains on air travel by taking advantage of the airlines' own rules and regulations. By using a little creativity, substantial savings are easy to achieve. The big problem, however, is finding out about these special fares and money-saving situations such as:

• On-line Auctions
• Bonus Air Miles from credit cards, car rentals and dining clubs
• Frequent Flyer Miles
• Free Vacation Give-Aways
• Charter flight fares
• Hidden-city fares
• Discount tickets sold by consolidators
• High/Low season fares
• Bump coupons
• Passes for unlimited or multi-trip travel
• Senior discounts
• Last minute or emergency travel
• Corporate discounts
• Group and children's discounts
• On-line Booking

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The airlines won’t tell you. Your travel agent, although well intentioned, usually can't spend the time and often doesn’t have the information available to search out the best fares for you. Yet, there are tons of ways to fly for free or at substantial savings.

BigFreebies will show you concrete ways of getting either free travel, or when that's not conveniently available, the best deal for you in an easy to understand hands-on guide, that will take you around the fine print and misleading information on air travel. We will give you the specific methods, including the contact names, phone numbers, fax numbers, web sites and e-mail addresses of the best companies and sources that we have found that will allow you to fly for free, or at least as cheaply as possible.

How to Find the Best Deals

Begin by searching on-line and calling travel agencies (we are going to assume you have been able to select a knowledgeable one you like) to find out which airlines have the best price to your destination. When searching keep in mind the following questions:

• What is the cheapest fare?
• What restrictions are there such as: advance purchase, weekday travel, minimum stay, cancellation penalty, limited seats, and is there one or more stops or a connection?

If you can't meet some or all of the requirements, then check the following:

• What is the lowest fare for a nonstop flight?
• What's the lowest price for a flight not requiring minimum stay?
• What's the best price for a flight leaving in less than one week?
• What is the cheapest fare if you have to travel on a weekday?

These basic questions will get you rolling; you can then explore other special fares.

If you travel frequently or have the time and desire to really keep abreast of the various and constantly changing air fares and routes, then you might:

• Keep a file of the cheap flight advertisements from the Sunday travel section of a large metropolitan newspaper in your area. You can also access this information instantly on-line by surfing to your favorite newspaper website.
• Subscribe to both on-line and off-line travel magazines, newsgroups and flight guides (the Official Airline Guide, OAG, is the most complete and universally subscribed to).
• Check the classified ads of the daily and Sunday newspaper for other "undiscovered" fares and deals.
• Compare the latest super low "limited time only" promotional fares offered by competing airlines by using on-line databases and search engines. Whether you have no computer or are a veteran surfer, this information can change your travel life forever.