Things to Check Before Choosing a Flight (Beyond Price)
or Why the Cheapest Flight Might Not Be the Best
I’m in the throes of planning a dream-for-me trip: a 12-day transatlantic cruise in March followed by three weeks in the UK. (More on this to come.) And I’m trying to do this as cheaply as possible, using points wherever I can.
But booking a return flight home from Scotland involved more than choosing the cheapest flight. Here are the things I checked before choosing a flight. And it went well beyond price, because the cheapest flight turned out to be more expensive.
Bag Fees
A carry-on or checked bag isn’t automatically free, even on international flights. So what might appear to be a cheap flight could escalate quickly. One of my flight options was split between two airlines, which would each charge me bag fees for their segment. (It was called a “Self Transfer” flight on Google Flights.) That added hundreds of dollars.
Airports
Google Flights makes it really easy to see how the price changes when you change airports. Sometimes it’s worth it to travel to a nearby city for a drastically cheaper flight. I checked both Edinburgh and Glasgow, because I’m taking a train between the two cities anyway. Glasgow was slightly less.
Flight Dates
Google Flights also shows you how the price will change based on which date you fly. The cheapest date might change based on which cities you fly to and from, too — Google Flights makes it easy to swap out variables when choosing a flight. April 23 was less expensive than surrounding dates, and Glasgow was still less than Edinburgh.
Layovers
All of my flight options had layovers in Reykjavik, Iceland. The “cheapest” base price was the aforementioned Self Transfer. It allowed plenty of time to get from one flight to the next — and even enough time to make a side trip to the Blue Lagoon! But I’d have to get my luggage, manage it during my layover, go through customs and recheck it. I didn’t know whether I’d have enough energy (or money) for a side trip after a four-week solo trip during which I was traveling through multiple countries. Sometimes you’re just ready to get home!
A slightly more expensive flight had only a one-hour layover, which could be too short. But Google Flights said that the second segment typically departs 30 minutes late. Plus the trip is on a single airline all the way through, and Reykjavik is a small airport. So I felt ok about it.
Layovers and Stopovers
If you have the time — and there are countless blogs just a quick Google search away that will tell you how long you need for most airports — you can sometimes take an excursion during a long layover. Heather has done that. Some airlines, such as Turkish Air and Iceland Air, even have stopover programs that allow you to split the segments of your flight over various days at no extra cost if your layover is in Istanbul or Reykjavik respectively, so you can spend extra time in your layover city. Turkish Air provides some perks such as free tours in their stopover program as well.
Because I’m flying Icelandair home, I thought about staying in Reykjavik for a few days. But after researching, booking and planning every single detail for my cruise, plus port stops in Bermuda and the Azores, then time in London, Oxford, Cambridge, Edinburgh, Cairngorms, Isle of Skye and Glasgow, I didn’t think I had it in me (or my wallet) to plan another country’s worth of hotels/transportation/daily activities.
Separate Segments
My final destination is Traverse City, Michigan. But booking a flight all the way there is much more expensive than booking a flight to Chicago, and then booking a separate flight to Traverse City. Sometimes booking flights as separate legs is much more affordable and more comfortable than choosing a flight that goes to your final destination.
If I have any energy left, I might also like to spend a few days in Chicago. I used to live there and miss my friends. There’s so much to do in Chicago as well, and it’s cheaper and more familiar than Iceland.
Departure and Arrival Times
The flight with the cheapest base price on Google Flights left at 6:25 a.m. I’m not a morning person anyway — I don’t sleep well. And getting a hotel right beside the airport to make that transition easy the morning of my departure was going to require a separate hotel booking and a little extra cash.
I also wanted to ensure that I left when it was light outside, since I would be in an unfamiliar place and had no margin for error at that time of day. I wasn’t sure what transportation options would be available at 4 a.m. either.
Booking with Points
I’m always looking for ways to save a buck on my trips. One of the easiest ways is to book flights or hotels with points. While planning this trip, I’ve learned a ton about booking with points — more on that later.
But two things helped when I was choosing a flight. One was Points Path, an add-on to Google Flights that will show you right in Google Flights which flights can be booked with points and how many points are required. Points Path hasn’t partnered with every airline yet; they’ll tell you which aren’t part of their program, and you can check on your own whether points are an option.
I also checked to see whether the available airlines belonged to alliances that I could transfer points to. Alliances, such as Oneworld, are groups of airlines that collaborate to connect parts of the world; they also allow you to transfer points among those partner airlines. If you have points that transfer widely, such as Chase Rewards points (versus points with a specific airline), you can transfer those points to partners to book flights. So even though I don’t have any points with Icelandair, I checked to see whether I had transferable points with Chase. (No luck.)
(I also signed up for Icelandair’s Saga Rewards program, so I’ll start earning points and perks with my flight home from Scotland. I should have done that on my first flight with Icelandair when I traveled to Paris several years ago!)
The Result
I ended up choosing a flight that was more expensive than the cheapest flight. The least expensive base fare was $492 on EasyJet and Icelandair. But that didn’t include $125 for bag fees on each leg of my journey. I didn’t want to force my tired future self to deal with the Self Transfer option. And feeling nervous already about costs, I didn’t want to pay the extra $200 or so to get to the Blue Lagoon and soak for a few hours, as nice as that sounded. I didn’t exactly want to get up at 3 a.m. for a 6:45 a.m. departure either!
So I paid more than I wanted, at $750 for a flight from Glasgow to Chicago. But I’m leaving Glasgow at a reasonable time in the afternoon. I don’t have to book a separate hotel by the airport. I fly almost directly to Chicago, with a short layover and thus minimal time and expense. My carry-on bag and checked bag are included in that price. I can get a cheap flight from Chicago to Traverse City. I can schedule my rail trip around Scotland to end in Glasgow instead of Edinburgh. And while I couldn’t use points to book the flight, I’ll be earning points — plus I used Pay Yourself Back points on my Chase Sapphire card to cover most of the flight’s cost.
Choosing a flight isn’t always as simple as looking at the cheapest price, because other variables can quickly add to the cost. Checking variables such as points, bag fees, layovers and various airports and dates can save you time, money and significant headaches.
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