What are some tips and tricks for finding the cheapest flight when luggage and other fees are not revealed until far into the booking process?Ne9gjøZ09 Qv94
I'm finding it ever more frustrating recently to compare and find the truly cheapest flights.
Flight search engines are more and more useless as airlines game the system increasingly to list low prices when you'll actually have to pay much more, especially with checked luggage.
Often the full amount of fees and taxes will not be shown until personal information and even credit card details have been entered. You can hunt each airline's sites for their luggage fees but they can be hard to find and easy to misinterpret.
For my current situation looking to fly from South Korea to a cheap destination in Southeast Asia, the full price often turns out to be double the advertised price!
I'm well into my trip so ditching my backpack is not an option. I'm looking for tips from experienced air travellers on how to select a flight when a huge proportion of the price seems to be hidden and obfuscated and seemingly unknowable in advance.
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1Related search: travel.stackexchange.com/questions/54301/… – Mark Mayo♦ 9 hours ago
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So apparently Google Flights is supposed to have this feature but I can only see a checkbox for carry-ons and nothing for checked bags. An article on "The Points Guy" points out that this feature is currently only for US domestic flights )-: – hippietrail 5 hours ago
3 Answers
For Aussies such as yourself, my site - Beat That Flight (and beta Android app) might be able to help a bit.
For example, on a search from Sydney to Hong Kong - on the left side, you can see baggage options, with the perceived difference in price:
It's not perfect, and relies on data on upstream providers as well, but makes an effort to try and calculate luggage.
I've seen others block searches for airlines like RyanAir in the past as it was just too difficult with all their crazy fee addons, but suspect you'll see more and more features like this in time to come.
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I found the interface confusing and if you're looking for beta tests, semi-retired computer programmer here (-: I do have to fight with it a bit but it is indeed doing what I want! Also, why only for Australians?? – hippietrail 6 hours ago
Kayak is not my first choice of search engines, but I do note that it now attempts to factor carry-ons and checked bags into the price. You have to start the search and then change the zero bags default in the filters.
Kiwi.com (which I also am not thrilled with) will tell you which flights allow NO bags, which isn't a great help, but it's something.
Generally, I use various search engines, then check the details on a few (or several) of the cheapest results.
The extremely flexible app from Azuon.com includes the options in this image
Unfortunately, Azuon often as not tells me there are no flights from anywhere in North America to anywhere in (some other huge area) for an entire three-week period!
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1Interesting. Is that a windows app? A link might be useful – Mark Mayo♦ 9 hours ago
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1Related: travel.stackexchange.com/questions/54301/… – Mark Mayo♦ 9 hours ago
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I found advice on other sites via Googling yesterday about this feature in Kayak. I found it problematic but got burned out with this stuff after too many hours and no longer recall the specific problems. – hippietrail 6 hours ago
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1@MarkMayo, Azuon is a Windows app, but I used it on Mac with a Windows emulating wrapper called Wine. I suspect it would also run in one of the Unix emulators or in a VM. I spoke favorably of it in the question you linked to, but since that time it has developed serious deficiencies, as I mentioned in the last sentence of my answer. I first reported such incidents to them at least eighteen months ago, and it is still happening. – WGroleau 5 hours ago
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@hippietrail, I haven't noticed "problems" with the Kayak feature other than the irritating fact that they constantly put it back to the default of zero every time I do anything. – WGroleau 4 hours ago
I book flights regularily and actually keep a list of hidden charges for the sites that come up near the top of any search regularily. Then, when I make a new search and see the prices listed, I simply add the hidden charges I know about in my head. Typically, the offers are close enough together that the hidden charges actually do make a difference.
It's a low-tech approach and it needs quite a few bookings (and going back out of a site because you consider their charges too high and picking another option) but by now I have a fairly complete list.
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Yes I was about to find a notepad and do this myself! I ended up using a text file along with Mark Mayo's site though, so kind of a hybrid approach (-: – hippietrail 39 mins ago