Let’s set the scene: you have somewhere you need (or want) to be, and it’s going to require booking a flight. You open your laptop and do a little searching. To your surprise, you find a great deal on a flight to your destination, and you jot down the itinerary. You close your laptop and head off to dinner with your travel partner to discuss specifics. Itinerary agreed upon and dinner complete, you return to the website to book the flights and that formerly “great” deal is now $200 more.
A lot can happen in the course of a few hours or even a few minutes in the travel industry. Rates for flights, hotels, rental cars, etc. are dynamic – constantly in flux. A multitude of tips exist (some bizarre, others with some credence), designed to help airline travelers secure the best deal: book 54 days in advance, book on Tuesday or Wednesday evenings, use an incognito browser window for online searches, only search during the Earth-Mars-Mercury planetary alignment while facing east and standing on one foot (kidding).
The fact is, the issue is complicated, and there is no crystal ball approach to getting the best deal; sometimes it comes down to luck. When you see a great deal, you just need to pounce – unless, of course, you have the time to keep checking and re-checking.
Luckily there are a plethora of online services these days, designed to track airline fares and alert you when they drop. You may even discover that your original “great deal” find is bettered by a competitor or a later offer. Many have additional services and mobile apps that make it easy to aggregate your travel plans into one itinerary.
TripIt Pro is one such service that some of The Wealth Conservacy crew have recently adopted. If you are considering a fare tracker, read the fine print, as they differ significantly in their offerings. For instance, TripIt Pro only tracks fares with domestic origins, connections, and destinations, and does not take into account the monetary impact of change fees before alerting you to lower fares. However, it does offer additional services like seat tracker and point tracker for all of your travel and loyalty-program rewards. It also has the added benefit of providing options on alternate flights, and open seats should your travel take an unexpected turn. Auto-sharing allows you to add other TripIt users (even “free version” subscribers) to your inner circle so that you can share travel plans.
Read more about TripIt Pro and see if it might help simplify your life (at least one facet of it).