How do you gain access? There are three main types of promo fares:
? Available online for anyone to use, and promoted at the site and/or through mass e-mail campaigns
? Individually generated deals specifically targeted to registered shoppers via e-mail
? Exclusive promotions advertised only through widget devices, such as Southwest's DING! and American's DealFinder
Recent deals have included JetBlue's 10%-off specials and Southwest's 50% promo code sale. That's right ... half off. In other
cases, promo fares signify a specific reduction that can range from $15
to $30 less per ticket, no small amount for a family of four. And in
some cases, airlines will allow you to forward your personalized code to
a relative or friend.
Hard to find
When it comes to realizing the savings of promo fares, there's a real catch: finding them. They generally will not appear on that travel
search site you've bookmarked. One place they will appear, however, is
at Airfarewatchdog, a travel search site founded by veteran travel
journalist George Hobica.
"We're seeing more and more of these promo fares," says Hobica. "Two years ago, hardly any airlines except Alaska were doing this. In
particular, Southwest has been very, very active lately. They've always
been very aggressive about driving people to their own website."
Full disclosure here: I've known George for many years and I've written before about his site, both on this site and elsewhere. He's
assembled a full-time staff of "airfare analysts" who do it the
old-fashioned way—with keyboards and fingers. That may sound decidedly
low-tech for 2009, but the fact is the "scraping" technology used by
major travel search engines simply can't do it all. In the first place,
some airlines—such as Southwest—don't make their fares available for
booking through third-party sites. Plus, promo code fares are expressly
designed NOT to be found on outside sites. The whole idea is for the
airline to entice you to its own branded site, where you punch in a few
numbers and/or letters to find a deal you won't find elsewhere.
Ferreting out promo fares can take a little extra work, or it can involve signing up for alert systems and watching your inbox fill up.
However, it's becoming increasingly apparent that it's riskier than ever
to book an airfare without checking that airline's own branded site
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