While many people assume that booking early will yield the best price on airfare, often, waiting until the last minute can pay huge dividends. When you can score a round-trip, non-stop flight from Chicago to Honolulu for just $500 by waiting until 48 hours before your departure to buy; that’s success in my book. Of course, if you are flying with multiple family members, including four kids under the age of five, it may not be possible to be so flexible. Still, waiting can produce big rewards, especially if you are booking a flight to a popular vacation destination, such … Continue reading →

Timing is everything when you are trying to land an amazing deal on airfare. This is especially true if you are booking online. Whereas there are dozens of travel websites out there, convenience and accessibility doesn’t make snagging a rock bottom deal less complicated. For example, many travelers scoop up airline seats thinking they’ve scored a super deal, only to discover that two days later prices plummeted by 30 percent or more. So how do you win at the high-stakes game of airfare poker? According to travel experts, there are two main strategies that come into play when searching for … Continue reading →

I am constantly on the look out for cheap flights to Hawaii. Last year, I thought I had struck gold when I happened upon a roundtrip, non-stop fare from Chicago to Honolulu for a mere $500. Turns out the actual retail price after taxes and mandatory fees was a not-so wonderful $665. How is that possible? I didn’t bother doing the math to determine the exact breakdown of the additional costs. Rather, I chocked it up to the chokehold the airline industry has on consumers and went about sulking. Fast-forward six months and I’ve turned that frown upside down. According … Continue reading →

Have you ever found yourself running back to an airport security checkpoint because you forgot a personal item? Apparently, not very many airline passengers bother to return for the spare change they are forced to deposit into bowls at Transportation Security Administration checkpoints. According to the government, in 2010, travelers left behind $409,085.56 in loose change at TSA security areas. The exact breakdown: $376,480.39 in dollar coins, quarters, dimes, nickels and pennies, plus another $32,605.17 in foreign currency. So, who are these wealthy flyers, who forget or choose not to collect their change when exiting the security screening areas? The … Continue reading →

“Friendly” and “airline;” you don’t really see those two in the same sentence these days. In fact, I can’t remember the last time I saw “friendly” and “airline” in the same paragraph. If you’ve taken to the skies in a commercial airliner with kids in the last decade or so, then you know flying can be anything but friendly. A true sign of this is can be seen by looking at the evolution of United Airlines’ slogans. The carrier’s catchy tag line “Fly the Friendly Skies” debuted in 1965. The airlines stuck with the slogan until 1996. Today United’s slogan … Continue reading →

I’ve flown nearly 250,000 miles in my 30 plus years on Earth, many with an infant, toddler, preschooler or elementary-aged child in tow. In that time I’ve had far more challenging moments than pleasurable ones, but I am still alive, so I suppose I should be grateful for that. Most of the commercial flights I’ve taken have occurred during the holidays when the last place on the planet you want to be is an airport. Still, the experiences have provided me with some important lessons, such as: Seating: If you or your child is prone to motion sickness, reserve a … Continue reading →