I’ve written about AirfareWatchdog before; here’s the quick summary which appears in my Ultimate list of top travel sites post:
Are you a procrastinator? Do you occasionally have to travel on little notice? If you answer “yes” to either of these questions, check out AirfareWatchdog. The site has a solid record of posting bargain, fire sale and price war fares more quickly than other sites. Type in your city name, select your airport, and the site will provide “Today’s LIst” of bargain fares. The site works with partners CheapAir.com and Travelocity. Note that some fares will involve multiple stops.
Also worth noting is the fact that the site lists fares from Southwest as well as smaller airlines like Allegiant and USA3000.
One of the features you may not be aware of is their “Fare Alert.” If your travel dates are flexible, and you’re interested in specific routes, you can set up an alert that will notify you of attractive fares.
In our case, my wife travels back to NY a couple of times a year in order to visit her parents. The specific travel dates aren’t critical – she usually visits once in the spring, and again in the fall – which is a perfect scenario for this tool.
I set up two alerts – one for OMA to ALB, and the other for LNK to ALB – and receive an email each time a low fare becomes available. Here’s an example:
This trip, depending how far in advance you book, can cost up to $600 RT (round trip) on the major carriers. Clicking on the “More Details” button provides the full information, including any restrictions (click for a close-up):
If you travel with little notice, or your dates are flexible, definitely check out AirfareWatchdog. By the way, I have no connection to AirfareWatchdog.
July 21st, 2010 at 2:35 PM
I love that the example you used was a flight on Southwest! Did you know that no other fare alert site has Southwest fares? That’s because Southwest doesn’t allow computer scraping of their fares, but we don’t use computers–we use real live human beings who search diligently for the best fares! And these fare analysts actually check to make sure that the flights are really available at those prices (no bait-and-switch!).
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July 22nd, 2010 at 6:51 AM
I’ve been receiving fare alerts from AFWD for a year or two, and recommend the service highly. In fact, I just booked a cheap fare last week from my city to Minneapolis because I received an email from them alerting me. I’ve created my own “wish list” of places I would like to visit by setting up alerts from my city (and surrounding airports) – it’s a wonderful tool!
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Kevin Reply:
July 22nd, 2010 at 4:46 PM
Mardee,
Thanks for visiting, and for your comment. I totally agree – it’s a great feature.
Kevin
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