Top 10 Flying tips

Unlike points from airlines like United and American and many other airlines, the value of Rapid Rewards are directly tied to the cost of the current price of the that airline ticket. So a flight that costs $400 will require about 2X the amount of Rapid Rewards as a flight that costs $200. I say “about” because there are some fluctuations. Typically, your Southwest points will be worth between 1.4 to 1.6 cents per point but sometimes the value can fluctuate even more.

This is one of the best flying tips around – Find a line of comfy chairs, put your feet up and make yourself at home! If you have an early morning flight, sleeping in the airport is a great way to save money. This is a top tip if you are travelling across multiple destinations or if you tried to book an airport hotel last minute but they are all fulled booked. For those who want to catch some rest while waiting around, some airports have ‘resting pods’ which is a state of the art chair with a fold flat bed inside. Really really tired and need some shut eye? Check if the airport has an accessible internal hotel. YotelAir in Schiphol airport, Amsterdam, is a hotel situated in departures where you can hire beds by the hour, take a monsoon shower or stay the night. A perfect way to refresh during your travels.

While the above search engines are great, they do not always include small airlines, especially in less popularly booked routes and/or in remote regions. If you're flying somewhere obscure, Google search and ask around if there exists a local airline. While in South America we learnt that the LADE Air in Argentina (run by the military) has cheap flights to Patagonia, which is of course not listed in mass search engines online. When you do find small airlines, even if they are listed in a search engine results, it often pays to check the company site which may reveal exclusive online offers not found in a regular search engine. For example, when flying in Western Canada, I found that Hawk Air, a small and local company offers weekly deals on certain days. Be sure to double check!

Before you book directly from the carrier, you should also compare prices with at least one third-party booking site. Sometimes, the better deal can be found from a third-party site. There are many different ones to choose from, but, three of the best are Momondo, Google Flights, and Priceline. Momondo is probably the most comprehensive portal as it analyzes the prices of over 30 travel portals and carrier websites. They also have excellent research tools which make it easy to find cheap routes. And, they list the prices of Southwest Airlines flight which most do not.