There are two ways to pick a flight:
- Best (actually, Cheapest) Flight
- Best Airline
The first way is the easiest: you have a flight coming up, you put it into Kayak/Expedia/Travelocity (or Hipmunk, a new and better site) and pick the best (and by best you mean cheapest). Congratulations. You have saved $18. And had to learn a new airport terminal, paid a $25 bag fee, almost missed your flight, and got no frequent flier miles. In case I’m being too subtle, I don’t think this is a great option.
If you travel at all regularly (4 or more times a year), I recommend you pick an airline. You won’t fly this airline if it’s $500 more, but you will if it’s $5 more; if it’s $50 more you might go either way. And what do you get for this $5-50?
Frequent Flier Miles. For 25,000 miles, you can get a ticket that would cost $500. That’s 2 cents per mile, which means a New York-LA round trip (round-trip distance 4,950 miles) gets you $99 of frequent flier miles. But you can only redeem the miles if you earn enough. It’s worth paying $25 to get a free $74.
Frequent Flier Status. The more you fly an airline, the better they treat you. They don’t charge you bag fees, they let you through security faster, they throw extra miles at you. Sometimes, they’ll even put you in first class for free (or discounted). And, best of all, when the weather goes wonky or the plane needs maintenance, you’re first in line to get home. The threshold for this kind of treatment is lower than you might think. (And new credit cards offer many of these perks even if you only travel once a year.)
Familiarity. Maybe I’m making too big a deal of this, but I like the familiarity. You know how boarding works, you know which airport restaurant is the least greasy. On a trip that’s going to wear you out, I like knowing what to expect.
Next I’ll help you figure out with Airline is Best for You.
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