Financial Friday: How to find a great airfare & more

How to Find Great Airfare & More
by Alice Shaffer

As professional nannies, we are most likely working in a location far from our hometowns. This can make going home complicated with the holidays and expensive. I am lucky enough to be a five hour car ride away from my hometown where I work. I have the luxury of having three major airports within 45 minutes of my job, and about an hour and 15 min plane ride home.

The holidays are coming up. The INA conference is coming up in May 2010. Spring breaks are coming up. You will want to start checking airfares now for the best rate. You can also find deals on car rentals and hotels too.

There are several websites that can you use to find the best deal for your travels.

1. Bing Travel With Bing's software, they are searching 100s of sites for the best deals for you. They also have a "Price Predictor". This tool will let you know if you should buy now or wait. It has about a 75% rate of accuracy. You can also compare flight prices/times with other fares they found in their search. They allow you to buy directly to the supplier of the airfares. The former Farecast has been acquired by Microsoft and is now on Bing Travel.

2. Kayak I have been using Kayak for a while to search for flights. I love how they search the various airlines for deals. They will also compare airfares with other sites too. (Airfare.com, Hotwire, Expedia, TravelocityExpedia, Priceline)

3. Yapta This site also lets you track the prices of airfares up to three months in advance.
Just sign up for the alerts. You may also be eligible for a voucher rebate if the airfare you
purchased drops below the purchase price.

4. ITA: This is the site that travel agents use. It is not very fancy but you can find prices and
so forth. Click on Searching Airfares using QPX You will need to know the airport codes to
search on this site. Log in as a guest. You will also have to buy the ticket from the airline
directly.

5. Mobissimo Travel is another site that searches several other sites too. Clark Howard
discusses this site frequently on his talk show.

6. Sidestep is another site that searches other sites as well. It was acquired by Kayak and
uses a very similar website layout

I personally love checking out:
Southwest Airlines and signing up for their Ding! Alerts
Jetblue Airlines
United Airlines
Delta Airlines

There are two airports close to San Francisco: San Francisco (SFO) and Oakland (OAK)
so make sure you check out both airports for the best airfare to the INA Conference

Let us know what deals you have found! Good luck and Safe Travels!