Cracking Airline Promo Codes

Ever wonder how your friends seem to end up with plane tickets that cost less than your Uber to the airport? With fuel prices surging and people everywhere clamoring to move around after the prolonged COVID-19 lockdowns and travel advisories, there are still some true deals out there. The answer could be as simple as a promo code. 

Promo codes are being used on all sorts of e-commerce sites, but when you get one to work on an airline’s site it could mean significant savings from just a few keystrokes. Here’s how they work.

Individual carriers as well as some dedicated travel sites allow customers to enter a short code consisting of numbers and/or letters to reduce the total amount of the transaction by either a fixed dollar amount or a percentage of the total sale. Perhaps you’ve seen or heard of this when advertisers ask you to “enter the code ‘XYZ’ at checkout” for example. That little code could be your way to big savings. 

The catch is that these codes are usually issued by the carriers themselves. And this means your choices could be limited. We suggest first casting a wider net by searching on any big travel site like Kayak.com, Travelocity.com, Booking.com, or Expedia.com to see what flights are available. Then, you can apply promo codes to your purchase on the carrier’s site. 

Sound like a lot of hassle for a little reward? There’s a more streamlined solution. Browser extensions can help do this comparative shopping for you. And while they’re at it, they can help find you hidden discounts and other deals as well. By installing a free extension like Capital One Shopping, Honey or Ibotta, you can simply search for the travel that suits you and let their sophisticated algorithms find you the best offers on your trips. 

Skyscanner is a great place to start looking for your flights if you’re open to different possibilities for airlines and travel partners. In addition to helping filter flights by your criteria, this site also offers regularly updated lists of deals that are grouped by carrier and site. If you’re only interested in flying with a single carrier because of a loyalty program then your search might end there. You can navigate to the carrier’s site and book with them. But if you’re open to as many deals as possible regardless of where they’re coming from, you can search “manually” on a site like skyscanner.com and trust that one of your browser extensions will catch whatever deals you may have missed along the way.   

No matter how you like to find flights, nobody likes to pay more than they have to for travel. So, with a few extra steps — some as simple as a free extension installation — you could be speeding toward savings.