How to save money flying – using Skiplagged.com

Last updated on June 9th, 2015 at 05:37 pm

Have you heard about the website ‘skiplagged.com‘?  If not, you should learn about it now!

This is a website where you can learn about flights which can save you some money flying… and sometimes those savings are a little, other times they can be a LOT of money.  So what? I hear you ask… well this is a travel industry ‘insider secret’ that is so secret, the airlines (specifically United Airlines) – is suing this website for leaking and making available this info… yep – SUING them for making you aware of this ‘secret’.

So what is this super-secret ‘secret’? The secret is called ‘hidden-city’ flights.

Huh?  What is a ‘hidden-city’?  We don’t know – because all the cities appear on maps somewhere – right?  It’s not like there is some place between say, New York and Philly that’s a bustling metropolis that only a few people know about… right?  Well that’s not exactly what this means… what the airline means is that they sell tickets to certain cities that are cheaper than other more popular destinations.  The hidden-cities are places that are cheaper to fly to than the place you want to go.

Ooo-kay… how does this help you?

Well in order to be helped by hidden-cities, you have to be able to look BEYOND the place you are flying to, and see if there is some place that has a cheaper flight, where your flight can connect to… it’s not easy to envisage, so let’s jump right into a real world example.

If I was to be flying back east from here (Denver area) – and I wanted to go to say, Boston – a hidden-city flight would be a flight PAST Boston, that stops in Boston.  See the example below – because we found one.  From Denver (airport code DEN) to Boston (coded as BOS) there are plenty of flights – and if we book one, we’re going to pay $322 on October 7th 2015, returning Oct. 20th.  That’s a chunk of change… but skiplagged.com found that there is a flight that goes from DEN to Buffalo, NY (BUF), that touches down in BOS.  This flight is actually $299 a fully $23 less than the flight to Boston.

So – how could I use this flight?

Simple – you need to have a carry-on only – no checked luggage – you book the DEN > BUF flight, which will touch down in BOS to pickup people who are just flying BOS > BUF, and at that time, you grab your carry-on – and you get OFF the plane.

Now – look carefully at the flight times… there is a flight on the 6th row of results – the same departure and landing time – it’s the SAME flight.  If we book DEN > BOS with this carrier, we take the same seat, the same plane and pay an extra $23 for the privilege.  The DEN > BUF flight is the same flight – you just don’t intend on using the last leg of the flight!

Step 2 – be flexible in your travel plans to save you money…

In the above image, you can see the ‘fare-graph’ – this shows you fare fluctuations – the price to fly varies depending on the day of the week, or ‘season’ of the ticket – and by ‘season’ means ‘airline travel season’ – not Spring, Summer, Fall or Winter – although they are somewhat aligned.

You can also use the time of flight sliders to adjust your flight-times, and uncheck your least favorite airlines – if you’re so inclined.

So – can you use skiplagged.com to save money in both directions? Why yes you can – but forget booking the return and prepare to be flexible on at LEAST your time of day…

so – how about flying back to Denver?

Our starting point was DEN > BOS was $322 at the lowest available price for a return… now we’ve just found that using ‘hidden-cities’ – we can travel DEN > BOS for $138 and get back for $121 – that’s a total of $259. We can save $63 or about 20% of the money… 🙂  That $63 savings is a pretty decent dinner out!