If you're planning a late-summer trip, you're probably trying to find the best deals on airfare--a daunting task, considering that prices on tickets for domestic flights have risen by 15 percent since last summer. Most people attempt to minimize the credit card damage by hopping over to CheapTickets or Priceline to find a decent deal. If that's your first and last course of action, however, you're probably paying too much. Instead, check out some lesser-known, human-run Websites for good prices that computers can't catch.
But a smart shopper knows how to get cheap fares without checking each airline. Start with Airfarewatchdog: Rather than relying on algorithms as other price aggregators do, this site uses a small staff to spot and post deals. The site reports only really low prices, so if you select a destination and it doesn't turn anything up, you can request an e-mail alert for when prices drop again.
What's the number one thing a consumer can do to find a cheap fare these days? George Hobica, CEO of Airfarewatchdog, says, "You have to follow Twitter feeds [for Airfarewatchdog and for the airlines], because e-mail is ponderous and slow. Fares fluctuate like stocks." If there have ever been reasons to join Twitter, wrangling a few extra bucks from an airline to spend on mai tais is one of them.