The State of Pandemic Travel Part 2: Airfare Tips
Tips to Travel During Year 3 of the Pandemic - 3-Part Series featuring travel-blogger, world-traveler, and founder of Travel Plus ThemTM Lakshmi Natarajan
Part 2 - Airfare Tips
Airfare is always important to think about when traveling. Is airfare going to be affordable or expensive? This is a multifaceted question depending on where you live, where you want to go, the timing of travel (things are changing daily), and whether the destination is tourist heavy.
There have been some cheap fares to certain destinations, if the airline has a hub in your local airport. For example:
- If you live in Miami, which is an American Airlines hub, they offer a significant amount of flights to Central/South America and the Caribbean.
- But if I wanted to go to Greece, the better options are nonstop flights from New York or Atlanta on Delta. There are more flights and cheaper versus American Airlines with a layover in London.
- If you are considering Europe, South America, Asia, or Africa, airlines have either canceled their routes and/or minimized the frequency of flights. So until that changes, you may not have a lot of options and / or layovers. For example, we flew from Miami to Cairo and only had one option. Turkish Airlines had limited flight frequency and a very high “fuel surcharge” but there were no other options because other airlines had paused their flights or had multiple layovers.
- If you are booking tickets- make sure your tickets are either “refundable or changes allowed with no penalty”— so that you can alter your plans if needed. Thankfully, many airlines are offering that now!
Here are some tips to find affordable air travel. Sign up and/or download the app for the following:
- Kayak- they will send you alerts on flights and recommended flexible date options at better rates.
- Skyscanner - they give you the option to shop for the cheapest place to fly to in the world from your home airport. This is great if you have not selected a destination yet.
- The Points Guy newsletters - they frequently share flight and points deals.
- CNN Travel - has been a great resource for the latest and greatest country level information.
Remember, your travel experience will still be awesome and you will find every experience memorable and amazing. Always be responsible and stay safe!
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