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How cheap can airfare get? I always look for the cheapest way to do things, so naturally, when I planned to go to Ecuador, I searched several web sites that claimed to have cheap international airfare. The absolute cheapest price from Traverse City, Michigan to Quito, Ecuador, was $1720 round-trip.
Then I checked Miami to Quito. It was only $404, and airfare from Traverse City to Miami was $299. I could simply book two separate flights and save more than $1000 on my airfare! By the way, as I write this, the discount sites aren't set up to check in this way, so you have to do this on your own (hopefully they'll soon find a way to search for us like this).
Now, if your first flight is late and you miss the second, you probably won't get a refund, so plan some time between flights. On the other hand, it's still cheaper - every time I check - to just book a flight to Miami and catch a flight to Quito without a reservation, thus avoiding this problem. This strategy works best for those in towns without international airports, of course. If you live in Miami, you already have cheap international airfare to many destinations.
Travel agencies just can't compete with the discount ticket web sites in most cases, so use the internet. Search Google ("cheap airfare Europe", for example), or go straight to one of the well-known sites, like Expedia, Travelocity, Cheap Tickets, Priceline or Hotwire.
Just now as I write this, doing a quick search for the cheapest airfare from Tucson, Arizona, to Buenos Aires, Argentina, using the five sites mentioned, here's what I found: They prices ranged from $3728 down to $873 - quite a range for essentially the same thing (better seats for $2800 more?!).
In this case, Hotwire was the cheapest, but then they were the worst of the five when I searched for a domestic flight earlier. You really can't say which service will find the cheapest international airfare from week to week, so my number one money-saving tip is to check several web sites when shopping for flights...
This was an excerpt from Chapter 3 of the e-book "Travel Secrets". For more tips on cheap international airfare, and many other travel secrets, visit: http://www.99reports.com/travel-tips.html
