Before you start your search, you will have to decide how flexible you are towards the date of departure, date of return and the type of flight (scheduled, regular, charter).
Flight schedules can generally be found on the airline’s website. These website, however, normally only present flights operated by themselves and/or their partners.
There are also large organizations that maintain databases with flight schedules of most, if not all, the airlines worldwide. The advantage of such organization’s website, such as oag.com and amadeus.net, is that they have powerful search engines and that they operate independently from the airlines.
The websites of travel agents are using so called ticketing or bookings systems, of which the Sabre, Worldspan, Galileo and Amadeus are the largest and most common. In principle they maintain a database with all scheduled flights operated worldwide. However, as this is not always the case, it is recommended to visit more than one search engine.
Amadeus is the only one that made its database available to the general public and objectively displays the information, without any filtering, sorting or prioritisation of information based on partnerships. It is the ideal search engine to start the planning and booking of your journey.
Start your search at Amadeus. Print off the results presented. Next, read the information we provided on “What fares to expect” and some information on fares provided below. Then, you continue your search by e.g. using the booking mechanism of our website, following the links provided below under “Types of flights”, or using any of the links provided in our overview of various travel websites. Compare the results from the search in the travel agent’s, travel portal’s and/or airline’s websites with the results you printed off when you started your search at Amadeus. As a last step, compare the various conditions and fares, and make your pick.
Note that “charter” and “regular” flights are not shown in the search results presented by travel agent’s and other search engines websites. For “charter” flights, check out one of the links listed in the “links to travel sites” page. For “regular” flights, “Fly Low Cost” is the only website that contains the information you need.
Scheduled Flights fares are a nightmare. It is indeed possible to fly cheap, even with a scheduled flight. The passenger in the plane next to you may have paid four times as much for the seat and service!
There are many codes and terminologies used associated with air travel, a summary of which can be found on our glossary (Defintions). Below are some terms that can be important to @-travelers:
Most airlines apply the rule that when you stay overnight from Saturday till Sunday at your destination, you can benefit from a very low fare. This is called the Sunday Rule and is coded as SU on flight information tables.
Y25 indicates that the rate is only valid for passengers younger than 25 years of age.
DUO means that you can only obtain the tickets when booked for two people.
Other important abbreviations are APEX and EXCURSION: these are generally special airfares for which certain rules apply, such as Sunday Rule, paid in full when booked and non-refundable.
Some of these codes can even be combined. Special fares are only valid for Economy Class tickets, whether coded as Y-class or otherwise. Business Class is normally coded as C- or J-class. First class is coded as F- or P-class.
If FF (or Full Fare) is presented, you will have to pay the full fare, which is the most expensive fare. However, FF does provide you with some benefits, such as a full refund of your ticket price, even when you did not show up for your flight (no show), you can change form one airline company to another, etc.
Open Jaw is a type of ticket arrangement which is used in case the airport of arrival is not the same as the airport of departure on the return flight or the next phase of your journey. One could arrive from New York at Phoenix (Arizona) and then drive to Los Angeles (California) with a rental car in order to take a return flight to New York.
Open Return is used for return tickets whereby the return date has been left open.
Global Tickets allow you to travel around the world. The website Airstop provides a good overview of such “global tickets” and its possibilities.
Stopover means a break in Passenger's journey at an Agreed Stopping Place, which break has been agreed to in advance by the Carrier. Some airlines allow for a “stopover” (on long haul flights) of a couple of days, after which you proceed your journey, without the need of booking two separate flights.
Note that the cheaper the ticket, the more conditions are associated with it.
“Charter flights” are generally part of a complete package, which includes flight and accommodation. However, cheap charter flights may be offered in the form of so called “camping flights” or “public charters” and thus can provide excellent value. Charter flights often operate nonstop in markets where scheduled flights would be less direct and do not have fixed or scheduled departure times, which means that the date & time can change up to the last minute without prior notice. In addition, many charters don't have all of the restrictions of scheduled-service discount fares, e.g. advance-purchase, stay over a Saturday night, stay no more than 30 days, etc. Finally, most charter fares aren't "capacity-controlled" like scheduled-service discount fares; every seat on the airplane is usually available at the advertised fare. "Public Charters" can be purchased from a tour operator, a travel agent, or sometimes directly from the airline. Some sites where one can book a charter flight, without hotel accommodation, include www.shopsmart.otc-uk.com, www.bargainholidays.be, www.directflights.com and www.airstop.com. There are, however, various conditions and/or restrictions associated with “public charters”, which can be found here.
”Regular flights” stand midway between a scheduled flight and a charter flight. These flights follow a fixed schedule (timetable) of departure and arrival times, but the fares are not the same as the ones of scheduled flights. Good examples of airlines operating regular flights are all the “low cost” carriers mentioned in this website. For a full list of all the Low Cost Airlines identified so far, have a look at “About Low Cost Airlines”. If you intend to book a flight with one of the low cost carriers, on the book with a low cost carrier first select the continent of your journey (e.g. Europe). All the cities from which you can depart and which are operated by these carriers are listed. Select the city of departure. Next, all the destinations operated by these airlines from the departing city you selected previously are displayed. When you select your destination, a timetable will be displayed for that route for each of the carriers operating that route. To book your flight, just click on the airline’s logo.
”Scheduled flights” operate in accordance with a fixed schedule (timetable) and are bound to airfares imposed by international treaties or the International Air Transportation Association (IATA). However, discounted or promotional tickets may be offered, which generally can be obtained through either a travel agent or the airline direct. Tickets generally can be booked via travel agent’s websites, such as www.connections.be, www.travelstreet.com, www.airstop.com, www.libertytv.com, www.travelprice.com, or just have a look at our list with links to travel sites.
On the websites www.amadeus.net and www.oag.com (less information) one can find information on scheduled flights. The advantage of these sites is that they use search engines that have not been “manipulated”, in other words, these sites are not sponsored by airlines and give objective information.
You can, of course, always book a scheduled flight via the airline itself. The pages “Airlines of the World” contain many links to airlines all over the world.
Large “travel portals” in various continents have been placed on the internet, of which airlines are the biggest shareholders. Some examples of such “travel portals” are www.orbitz.com (America), www.opodo.com (Europe) and www.zuji.com (Asia).
International travel agents all over the world, such as www.cheaptickets.com, www.travelocity.com, www.flights.com, www.ebookers.com, www.lastminute.com, www.expedia.com and www.lowestfare.com try to benefit from the opportunities the internet bring them and are closely monitoring the impact these “travel portals” may have on their success.
“Last Minute” bookings are flight booked at the very last minute, certainly not earlier than fourteen days before the date of departure. The advantage of last minute bookings are often the cheap fares you can get, if there are enough seats unsold. The risk of waiting until the last minute is, of course, the fact that no seats may be available anymore. Two examples of sites offering “last minute” flights are www.expedia.com and www.europebyair.com, or visit the airline’s website, as they may also offer “last minute” flights.
“Promotion” or special offers may include discounts, additional nights, special meals, excursions, etc. Generally you are better off with promotions than with last minute bookings. Promotions can generally be found on the Airline’s websites. For links to most of the airlines in the world, have a look here.
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