Every supercommuter is, by definition, a professional traveler, and likely has a good set of tools for optimizing flights. If you work in one city and live in another, you may go back and forth somewhere between 4 and 50 times a year.
But, unless your employer pays for the bulk of your travel, flight costs can be a major part of the cost of being a supercommuter. There are many ways to cut these costs, often by incurring a different set of costs on second-tier airlines, or by making your trip less comfortable and more difficult. Giving up good seats or miles, or adding legs to trips can be hard to justify.
This article details 3 strategies for an airline plan that can keep you flying first tier airlines, where you probably have status and an airline credit card. You don’t want to give up expedited boarding, free checked bags and the seats of your choice, by taking a cheap “basic” fare or a discount airline.
Here are some strategies that you probably know, but unless you put them together in a plan, you probably are not taking full advantage of the way they work together. We wrote this plan around United’s policies; we flag below where other airlines differ.
1. Book Early and Often
Set an airline travel budget for 6 months, and spend it all up-front.
Here’s an example – in January, set your budget for March to September. For illustration, set your budget at $150 per one-way flight. This puts you at $1,800 for monthly trips over a 6-month period.
Then pick approximate dates for your travel. These don’t have to be exact, but pick possible or likely dates.
Put all of your dates into a fare tracking tool (see number 2 below). Buy regular economy tickets (not basic economy) whenever prices hit the $150 target range, securing these low fares early. Don’t worry about the flight times or getting your exact preferred flight – just pick flights that are within about 18 hours of when you think you would want to fly.
In some cases, you may want to book more than one flight for the same trip – when you have alternative plans that may or may not involve a weekend, for example. Once you’ve set your budget, don’t be afraid to have 10+ future trips booked, some of which you will use and some of which you will not.
The key is that, with the major airlines that offer flight credits, you can cancel any of these flights and redeploy the flight credits on other possible future flights. Once you’ve given your budgeted funds to the airline, you will have many ways to switch between credits and placeholder flights. As long as you are comfortable managing all your placeholder flights and credits, you do not need refundable fares. Your credits will all be put to good use.
2. Use a Fare Tracking Platform
Pick one or more platforms to track fares. Put all of your contingency flights into the platform’s fare tracking (and notification) system. Some of the specific information you put into the tracker is very important. If direct flights are available, you will want to pick only direct flights. You should pick only the first tier airlines that you want to fly or where you have status. Worry less about flight times.
There are some problems with many fare tracking platforms that can waste your time. Chief among these are basic fares – if you set a fare tracker but don’t exclude basic fares, you will get many false notices regarding price drops.
With some platforms and some airlines, you can make selections that serve as a proxy for excluding basic fares. For example, if you use Google Flights, selecting one carry-on bag for a domestic United flight will exclude basic fares. Unfortunately, the same filter does not work on American through Google. If you want to search both airlines, but you are excluding basic fares for only one, you will get many false alerts and comparisons.
Expedia (#ad) offers the alternative to filter based on whether a reservation allows for a seat choice. This works better as among multiple airlines. Most other platforms do not offer this.
Even after you have booked flights, there are advantages to continued tracking. You can often get credits when prices drop, either through the airline (as described in 3 below), or through a service offered by a booking and tracking platform like Expedia (#ad).
3. Change, Change, Change
Once you have placeholders, credits and fare tracking in place, the ability to make changes and cancel flights at no additional cost becomes very valuable.
(A) Changes to Build Credits:
After booking, keep an eye on your tracked flights. If you notice a fare decrease below what you paid, you can often switch to a cheaper flight and put a credit in your account. In some cases, you can even switch back into the same flight at a lower cost – you may be able to switch into another flight at no cost, and then back into your original flight with a credit.
(B) Changes for Better Schedules:
If you notice that fares for flights with more convenient times drop to the price you paid for less convenient options, don’t hesitate to change your booking. While flight times are often not as important as the fares (because of the earlier/later flexibility discussed below), you should never pass up a good fare on a flight at your preferred time.
(C) Last-Minute Changes:
This is where airlines differ sharply, so know your carrier’s rules before you build a plan around them. United lets you switch flights during check-in, starting 24 hours before your scheduled departure, generally at no additional cost on standard (non-basic) fares. American, by contrast, charges for same-day confirmed changes (starting at $60, waived only for top-tier elites and unrestricted fares) and requires the new flight to depart the same calendar day between the same airports. The strategies below are written for United’s rules; on other airlines, verify before you rely on them. Used correctly, this feature can produce enormous savings.
Moving earlier – confirmed changes and standby. Say your flight is at 1:00 pm on January 1. Starting at 1:00 pm on December 31, you can enter the check-in process and try to move onto a flight before your scheduled one – either as a confirmed change or on the standby list. With good status, your odds of a confirmed earlier flight are strong outside of peak travel days (when you may need to accept a connection instead of a nonstop). Without status, you can usually still stand by for an earlier flight. Standby is the natural tool for moving earlier, because you keep your reserved seat as a fallback if you don’t clear.
Moving later – confirmed changes only, and the window stretches as the day goes on. The check-in tool generally shows flights departing within roughly 24 hours of the moment you check. So as the day before your flight progresses, options after your scheduled flight come into view. At 5:00 pm on December 31, you may be able to confirm a flight as late as 5:00 pm on January 1 – four hours after your original departure. This only works as a confirmed change: airlines don’t offer standby for flights after your confirmed flight, because the standard pattern is to keep your reservation and stand by earlier. If you want to fly later, you have to commit.
One more caveat – none of this applies to basic economy fares, which is one more reason this plan books regular economy from the start.
On United, combining early booking of cheap fares and 24-hour changes can make $150 (or very low) fares for almost any domestic major route realistic. On airlines that charge for same-day changes, add the change fee to your math before assuming the strategy still pencils out.
Of course these strategies involve risks, particularly on heavy travel days, or days when the weather interferes. But we’ve found that 80-90% of the time, you can pay around $150 for a major route, and still get the optimal flight, keep priority boarding, good seats, and baggage privileges.
Supercommuting at Half the Cost
The plan above demands attention and flexibility, but the cost savings can be dramatic. If you are a quarterly commuter, you may pay $1,200 – $1,500 for good flights. Without a plan, you are more likely to pay $3,000 – $3,750.
If you are a weekly commuter, you could pay $15,000 for good flights using this plan, as compared to $35,000 without the plan.
Every supercommuter’s tolerance for detail and desire to optimize differs, but for many, using an airline plan like this can really pay off.
Add this to your Anywhere Plan!
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