How To Get The Best Online Deals On Travel Website Booking Engines

When you go online to book airfare, whether on an airline's Web site or a travel retailer's, these tips will help you get the bestfares.

Please note: That Tom Parsons CEO of Bestfares writes a weekly column for The Dallas Morning News this story appeared in August 2009.

If you're traveling with other people, always check the fares based on just one traveler, then compare it to the per-person rate you get when you plug in the number of all of the travelers in your party. The reason to do this is that if you're looking for four tickets and there are only three tickets left at the cheapest rate, the computer will look for four fares available in the same fare class.

For example, if there are three tickets available at $228, but you ask for four tickets, the computer reservation system will price four tickets at the next available fare level that has four seats. If the next lowest fare is $268, you could end up paying $40 higher per person for four fares, for a total of $1,072. However, if you've already priced the cheapest fare at $228, you can find three at that rate and pay $40 higher for just one ticket, for a total of $952 for all four tickets.

On Bestfares.com, if you ask for one ticket, the display will tell you how many seats are remaining at that lowest rate. If there aren't enough cheap seats for your party, you can then book the number of the cheapest seats available and make a separate reservation for the remaining seats you need.

The only downside to separating your ticket purchases is that if you are an elite frequent flier, you and everyone on the same reservation record as you usually can check up to two pieces of luggage free. If you aren't on the same record, your companions can't get that perk.

If you see an airfare sale advertised and you can't find the fare on your preferred dates, look at alternate dates. Tuesday, Wednesday and Saturday are usually your best bets for cheap fares, but we have seen recent sales from Southwest for travel Monday through Saturday and on AirTran and Frontier with travel any day but Friday and Sunday. We almost never see sale fares for Sunday travel, but it doesn't hurt to price it. You may luck out.

It's not too early to start looking for holiday fares. To get a good rate, play around with dates. If you can travel on the actual holiday, such as Thanksgiving, Christmas or New Year's Day, you can often find the cheapest seats. Price a trip departing Christmas Day and returning on New Year's Day to see what kind of deal you can get over the winter break. Avoid traveling on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, the Sunday after Thanksgiving and Jan. 2 and 3, since it will be difficult to find lower fares on those popular travel dates.

When looking for the best deals, don't forget to compare fares at alternate airports. We recently saw fares from Dallas to Orlando for as low as $98 round trip, so if you were traveling to Daytona, Jacksonville or Gainesville, Fla., you could have saved a bundle by flying into Orlando. Fares to the other cities were over $100 more. The savings can really add up if you're traveling with a companion or your family.

Tom Parsons has been writing weekly columns for The Dallas Morning News for the past 14 years. To read more stories from Tom Parsons CEO of Bestfares.com please visit his archives here.