#airfare-pricing

#airfare-pricing

For a great deal on airfare-which usually equates to the "best" time to fly-is the middle of the week, according to all the travel pros. "This can vary by region or airport, but in general, airports will be less busy during the middle of the week for leisure destinations, or on weekends for more business-focused locales," travel expert and point.me (an award flight search engine) cofounder Tiffany Funk says.

Throwaway ticketing is a simple concept wrapped in complicated airline logic. It happens when a traveler books a round-trip flight, but only uses the outbound leg throwing away the return. Here's an example: You want to fly from New York to London one way. The one-way ticket costs $850. But a round-trip from New York to London and back costs $620. So what do you do? You book the round-trip and skip the return flight.

You're hunched in a plastic chair, clutching your boarding pass, waiting for a flight that doesn't even depart until after midnight. Around you, the terminal looks like a strange in-between worldhalf asleep, half awake. You could've taken the 10 a.m. flight like a normal person. You could've slept in, had breakfast, and breezed through check-in. But you didn't. You took the red-eye.