The Airfare Stock Market

It is often tiresome to search for cheap airfare between European cities and has been near hopeless for a number of years. Like many myths, this one sprouted from a grain of truth—the once-common practice whereby airlines loaded” their fares into their reservation computers, with the highest volume of deals often landing on Mondays, meaning there’d be more low fares to snap up the following day, according to William J. McGee, aviation adviser to Consumer Reports.

But sometimes, those $69 transatlantic flights are just too good to pass up The key here is to keep an eye out for fees, since most of these airlines run unbundled fares that tack on fees quicker than basic economy , where everything from meals to seat selection to carry-on luggage costs extra.

We love the Hopper app because it gives us a heads up about which cities around the world will have dropping airfares in the coming month It does this with maddening levels of research, analyzing price data from millions of flights to figure out what’ll be cheap in the coming weeks.

It is admirably transparent about this; when you click the dropdown menu for any deal, it displays its own price first but also includes fares from other sites and the airlines itself that sometimes beat it. Its results screen remains one of the most complete in terms of all the intel it offers in its dashboard—though it would be nice to include actual baggage fees rather than generic notes like baggage fees may apply” on airlines it knows will charge them.

For travelers who need extra assistance, airlines may allow one caretaker through security and to the gate as long as the escort provides his or her full name, birth date and government-issued ID. It helps to request this at least a day ahead with the airline.

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