Great Airfares - The Traveling Professor

The Traveling Professor’s Guide to Finding the Best Airfares
By Professor Stephen C. Solosky
The Traveling Professor
Author of The Traveling Professor’s Guide to Paris
www.travelingprofessor.com
Fliers can use various websites to find airfares. CheapTickets, Kayak, American Airlines, Delta, AirFrance, Hipmunk are
just a few. But why not use the software that powers these and many other reservations systems yourself? That
power is put into your hands with matrix.itasoftware.com. For me, it is the most powerful and flexible search engine
for finding the least expensive and most creative air itinerary possible. The best part about it, it is very simple to use.
While it does have limitations, I find matrix.itasoftware.com the best airfare and air itinerary software out there to
provide the least expensive, most flexible, and most creative air itineraries.
Note: It’s helpful, but not necessary, to know the three-letter codes of the airports you will be searching for. For
instance, DFW is Dallas/Ft Worth, SFO is San Francisco, CDG is Paris Charles deGaulle, etc.
Searching for a Simple R/T Ticket
In this case we are traveling between DFW and JFK, departing on July 7 and returning on July 10. We enter the
“Departing from:” airport and the “Destination:” airports and the dates. Then click “Search”.
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After searching, the results are as follows:
The airlines, fares, and itineraries are displayed. The stops and advisories (overnight flights, airport changes, etc.) are
also noted if applicable. Click the itinerary you like, it will be listed in great detail, then go to the airline website, and
book.
Modifying the Search
After clicking “Modify Search” at the top right of the screen, we can enter some modifiers to help us find the best flight.
In this case we are going to select flights plus or minus 1 day on the departing date or the day or the day after the arrival
date.
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Here are the results:
Alternative Airports
A good method for finding lower fares is to fly into alternative airports. For instance, instead of flying to/from JFK, it
might be a good idea to include New York’s LaGuardia (LGA) or Newark (EWR) into the mix. This is where knowing your
airport codes comes in handy:
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Alternatively, click the “Nearby” link and select airports from 25-2,000 miles away. In the query below, we select all
airports within a 50 mile radius of JFK.
Advanced Routing Codes
This is the real strength of matrix.itasofware.com. I can specify which airline I want to fly on, if I want a direct flight,
specific connection cities, and a myriad of others. The help dialog is of particular assistance.
In the example below, I want to fly on American Airlines (aa) only.
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Multi-City Flights
In order to plan multi-city flights, click the “Multi-city” tab. In this example, we are looking for three flights: JFK to MAD
(Madrid) on July 7. MAD to FCO (Rome) on July 10. Then I click the “Add another flight” tab to return to JFK from FCO
on July 14:
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Finding the Best Airfare Within a Certain Time Period
With this search strategy, it is possible to find the best flight within a 30-day period. For instance, say you wanted to fly
R/T (you could also do it with one-way flights too) from JFK to LHR from the period of October 15 to November 15 and
you want to stay 6-8 nights. To set up the query, put the departure and arrival airports in, click the “See calendar of
lowest fares” radio button, put the starting date in, and the number of nights.
After clicking “Search” a screen like this comes up:
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The lowest fares are displayed in red. Pick the date that suits you to view the list of flights:
There are plenty of options within matrix.itasoftware.com to experiment with to help come up with the best air itinerary
for you.
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