Save money by always checking nearby airports
Those of us who’ve flown a lot and also like to find the cheapest tickets possible have quite a few tricks in our bag, and one of the best is to be as flexible as possible and consider alternative airports on both ends of your journey. It’s easy to assume that most flight search engines would do this automatically, but many do not, and this could end up costing you hundreds of dollars extra if you aren’t careful.
When to look for alternative airports
If you are unlucky to live near exactly one major airport, and want to fly to an area with exactly one major airport, there isn’t much you can do, but this situation is actually very rare. Most of us live near at least two or three airports that have longer-distance flights, and even the smallest of those can sometimes be cheapest.
Generally, the bigger the airport the cheaper the tickets
As a rule of thumb the cheapest flights will generally be through the largest airport on both ends of your journey, but with the emergence of some of the newer low-cost airlines, this isn’t always the case.
For example, the Miami International Airport is a major hub for flights between North America and all of Latin America, and it’s the largest in its area. But even if you want to stay at one of the South Beach hotels, you might find a big savings by flying into Ft. Lauderdale Airport, which is only about 30 miles away. In this case, Spirit Airlines flies only to Ft. Lauderdale, and not to Miami International, and their fares are almost always the lowest by far. You might save $100 per ticket on your flight in exchange for an extra 30 minutes in a taxi or rental car.
Low cost carriers keep the major airlines cheap as well
Other examples of areas where alternate airports are often the cheapest are New York City and Los Angeles. In both those cases, JetBlue flies into only one of the local airports, from JFK to New York to Long Beach near Los Angeles. Long Beach itself is a tiny airport that very few people check on its own, but JetBlue flying there often makes it the cheapest airport in the area.
When these low-cost carriers fly into any airport in the market, even the traditional airlines have to cut prices to compete. The same is true of Chicago, San Francisco, Dallas, and even Toronto. Most flight-booking search engines make it very easy to compare all the airports in an area at once, but make sure the one you are using has that feature or it could be costing you money.
International flights are the same
While most long-haul overseas flights do use the major airports in each city, there are plenty of exceptions, including Gatwick in London and Orly in Paris. There’s even a more dramatic example in Ireland, where Dublin itself is usually kind of expensive while Shannon Airport, which is closer to the middle of the island, is generally much cheaper. Ireland is small and it’s easy to reach Dublin from Shannon, though many people rent a car and include Dublin only on one section of their Ireland tours.
Do a little research and you can save a lot of money to fly sooner next time.