Using Facebook to find cheap airfare (and stalk people)

by Jerry Guo on

The hit social networking site Facebook recently introduced third party applications that serve various purposes. Some are useful: trading music tips. Some are more frivolous: killing zombies. Now there’s a nifty little tool that could save you cold hard cash. It’s an app called “Where I’ve Been,” which mainly serves to show your friends, well, where you’ve been.

But one of its newest features is “flight finder,” which lets you select a departure city and then view a visual representation of the cheapest fares to hundreds of international destinations. The best part is you can narrow the results based on how much you’re willing to pay. For instance, I wanted to go somewhere cheap in late December, so I selected Newark, NJ as the departure city and then used the slider to put a $500 max on airfare. Most of the dots that popped up were in Europe or the states, but I also found a $400 ticket to Lima, Peru.

One thing to keep in mind is the service is in beta right now, so important details like dates of travel haven’t been worked out. Come to think of it, I don’t even know which travel sites they get the data from. That hasn’t stopped rumors that the app has been purchased for $3 million by TripAdvisor.

East and West Coasters: Virgin America releases 25% off code

by Grant Martin on

For those of you blue-staters out there looking to non-stop across the country, Virgin America (VX) just released a 25% off code redeemable on any of their flights.

Virgin America, in case you’re wondering, is the domestic Low Cost Carrier (LCC) arm of Virgin Airlines, the British based international airline and part of the Virgin empire. They’ve been flying since August of this year and fighting for their share of the non-stop transcon market.

This means that in addition to your normal service they’ll be offering other perks to try to win your business. Televisions in your seats. MP3’s. Power. Mood lighting.

VX flies from their hub in San Francisco among New York City, Washington DC, Los Angeles and Las Vegas, so if you’re a red-stater or just unlucky like me, you have to take a pass on this one. I’ll dig up something for us later.

Use code ELEVATE25 to book before 2359 on December 7th to take advantage.

Open skies agreement starts to bear fruit: Delta/KLM/Air France routes to open

by Grant Martin on

Much of the hullabaloo about the Open Skies Agreement between the United States and the EU died down after consumers realized that prices won’t be drastically affected. Despite speculation that 10£ transatlantic tickets were on the horizon, marketing and the low-cost-carrier airline network have a long way to go before we see anything like that.

Another benefit to the OSA though is the available collaboration among carriers for landing slots. Alliances such as Skyteam and Oneworld now can substitute their partner flights in place of older, less used routes. For example, if British Airways’ LHR-JFK flight isn’t doing so hot, they can cancel the slot and give it to Cathay Pacific for LHR-HKG.

Why do we care? This means alliances can shuffle volume between EU and transatlantic sectors and create more routes across the pond. In the most recent venture, Delta has teamed up with Air France and KLM, permitting Delta to use several of Air France’s hubs across Europe. Directly, this means more non-stop flights from the US to EU. I would venture that more supply means lower prices, but with the volatility in the airline market these days, who knows?

More Fare Sales from the Mainland to Hawaii

by Grant Martin on

In case you haven’t been reading your travelzoo/orbitz junk mail for the past few days, there is a pretty serious fare sale going on from the mainland out to Hawaii. Availability has been spotty over the weekend and a few people got some 250$ tickets from Chicago and Detroit out to Honolulu for October and November (sorry I was gone this weekend and I couldn’t tell you guys earlier).

Well, this morning a new chapter of the fare sale unfolds, with United releasing seats out of Atlanta (see below) through mid-March of next year. Blackout dates are generally Friday-Monday and it looks like fares are bottoming out at about 320$. You’ll have to fiddle around with dates to get the right price; try using a flex search on your favorite search engine to find an appropriate time. I’m picking up 322$ on UA from 16-22 Jan right not on Kayak. Remember, MLK day is Jan 21.

United has a 24 hour cancellation policy so you can book early and ask questions later. And as I say every time a secret sale happens, book early. This fare won’t last long.

Update: word on the street is that Delta is launching a similar sale from WAS in a few hours. Keep your eyes peeled.

Update2: Also good from Salt Lake City and Phoenix.

Top Five Foreign Travel Search Engines to Fuel Your Budget Travel

by Grant Martin on

With the tanking dollar and rising fuel costs, it’s getting harder and harder to find cheap fares out of the US these days. But not all markets are created equal. Airlines and travel agents base their prices on supply and demand; if they decide to cater to a particular country or region, often times the prices from that area will reflect it. As the New York Times recently reported, it can therefore be useful to try querying an off-shore search engine in addition to your favorite domestic website.

I’ve been doing this for a few years with mixed luck. What I’ve found is that with a little bit of patience and clever planning, one can frequently find competitive fares by searching on foreign sites. The difficulty is in finding the best engine and method suiting your needs; not all sites accept US-based credit cards nor are they in English. Occasionally, you’ll also have to deal with paper tickets and will need to find a foreign address to send them to. But these are small hurdles on your quest to dirt-cheap fares. A little research and patience and you’ll be well on your way to secret low-cost tickets from abroad.

Luckily, you have me to give you a head start. I’ve compiled a list of my top five favorite tools for finding good deals from foreign sites. Don’t forget to convert your currency!

1. zuji.com
As I reported earlier this week on Gadling, Zuji is a powerful tool built off the Travelocity engine, with the added benefit of broad flex searches. I’ve booked several mainland China flights through Zuji with no problem — just watch out for their added taxes at the end.

2. kayak.co.uk
The British analog of kayak.com, kayak.co.uk (or kayak.fr or de.kayak.com) provides a similar fare search from a European perspective. As the NYT article mentioned, Paris-Nice flights researched on kayak.fr were generally cheaper than those found domestically.

3. opodo.co.uk
There is a faint stench of Oribtz on the Opodo website, but when it comes down to the nuts and bolts of the operation, you can’t go wrong with the solid architecture on the site. I subscribe to the weekly fare deals coming from Opodo, and occasionally they come up with some competitive prices.

4.travelprice.be
Travelprice only comes in two flavors, French and Dutch, but that just adds to the authenticity of the site. Pawing around the reservations page you’ll find a lot of the same options as in any other search engine (airport codes are always the same) and you should be able to find your itinerary after tinkering around for a few minutes.

5. flylc.com
If you’re traveling solely in Europe its also always handy to check the low cost carriers to see if any of them serve your route; most of their itineraries don’t show up on legacy travel search engines. Flylc has a comprehensive list of city pairs and the airlines that serve them, just click your departure and destination and you’ll see what carriers are available. I always cross reference flylc flights to the legacy carrier itineraries to see if there is a huge fare difference.