Taking advantage of the opportunities presented

Part of the fun for me is just the joy of travel. I like sitting on an airplane (even in coach!) or on a train or in a car or bus, just for the sake of travel. But in addition to that, there is something to be said for getting the better of the “man” and taking advantage of the opportunities that the travel industry offers when they make mistakes.

Not every cheap deal is a mistake. Indeed, $200 transcontinental routings still exist, though they are much less common these days, and the carriers seem to want you to book them. Every now and then, however, a fare comes along that is the result of a data entry issue. Maybe the fare is supposed to be CDN$3900 and it gets loaded as CDN$39.00. Maybe the fare was supposed to be $5531 each way and it gets loaded as $531 each way. Or maybe the fare was supposed to be $171 r/t and it gets loaded as $71 r/t or a $1200 fare that was $120. In some cases the fare actually gets loaded as $0 plus tax, though such instances are incredibly rare. I’ve booked a couple of these deals (the first two and the last one noted above) and had some great vacations as a result. It wasn’t that I necessarily knew that I wanted to go to Cyprus or New Zealand the past two New Years, but that’s where the airlines seemed to suggest that I go; I just bought the tickets they offer and figured out the details later. There’s a whole subculture dedicated to these fares on FlyerTalk, and a few of the folks there take it more seriously than others.

One of the more serious players is the FrugalTravelGuy. He manages to keep track of a dozen or so airlines and the various deals that are always swirling about. And he was featured in his local paper this past weekend. I’m not sure if it was to identify him as a member of the crazy travel obsessed clan or something else, but it is a pretty decent article. Anyways, click the link above and check out his collection of posts; there are some good ones there worth checking out.