Group Airfares I

How to get the cheapest group airline tickets

You can find group airfares considerably cheaper than the best group airline ticket prices quoted by the airlines by using the Internet.

Instead of one free group travel ticket per 10 (a mere 10% discount) and other modest offers, you can go for 30 – 40 – 50% or even more off the best group airfares. Last-minute discounts may be even more.

This page gives you a productive strategy and tips in order to save substantially on your group travel. You could become a hero to your team, school group, church or temple group, club, or senior organization.

Cautions

You can save a lot, but note these cautions:

These tips are not meant for large groups. A small team, club, or church or temple group is fine.
Saving this much money may create some inconvenience.
Your group could be split up into smaller groups that travel at different times.
The tickets may vary in price, so you should have an agreement where everyone pays the same price regardless of the price on their ticket, if they booked on the same day.

The low fare strategy outlined here works when airlines have lots of seats available. Planes that take off with unsold seats mean revenue lost forever. This is an opportunity for you.

If your group wants to travel when flights are already heavily booked, do not use the strategies outlined here, as there may not be enough low fare tickets for your entire group.

Be flexible for best fares

The more flexible you are, the greater your chances for big savings on group airfares.

You must be willing to buy nonrefundable tickets that cannot be changed. (You may buy cancellation insurance for medical emergencies.)
Your group has to be divided into smaller groups of eight (or less).

Groups of eight work well for youth organizations and teams, as you usually need one adult driver per eight anyway, as that is the usual minivan capacity.
Each member of a small group has to be booked and paid for at the same time.
The various small groups must be willing to travel on different flights.

In other words, one small group might leave at 8:00 a.m. while another leaves at 2:00 p.m. You cannot depend on airlines to deeply discount most seats on one flight.
For the cheapest overall price, you should be willing to consider alternate airports.

Popular destinations like Orlando and Los Angeles have reasonably convenient alternate airports, in case there isn’t room for everyone to fly into one at a bargain fare.
You may even need to consider traveling on different days to maximize your savings, if you are trying to get to a popular destination at a peak time.

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Step-by-step instructions

Do your research. Knowledge brings buying power.

Call the major airlines serving your destination to find out their best group airfares and whether or not your group qualifies. Ask for the group desk.
Check the best individual fares for the days you wish to travel on an excellent discount site like Expedia.com's Flight Reservation Wizard. Note if flights have more than one connection, which you should try to avoid.

Except for Las Vegas and in most cases Orlando, you are better off staying over a Saturday night when choosing your dates. Also, getting out of places like Las Vegas, Nashville, and Orlando can be hard on Sundays.

You may also wish to check sites that specialize in flight and hotel packages such as Hotwire.com and Priceline.com Vacations. The latter has especially good last-minute bargains.
Before continuing, be sure that you have the full legal names and contact numbers for each member of your group and a firm okay from that person’s parents or guardian if he or she is a minor.

The names reserved—especially the first and last—must match the government issued photo id to be presented to airport security. (More on these topics in “What to do if . . .” later.)
You also need to find out how flexible your travelers really are. What dates can they travel? Will they leave from another airport to save money? Who will fly on non-jet planes to save money? Who on red eye flights—flights that leave after 10 p.m. or before 6:00 a.m.? Having this information lets you put together your small groups to maximize savings.
You need a credit card with enough credit available to charge each ticket of a group of eight. You can put different groups on different cards, but each person in a group of eight has to be charged to the same card.
Before booking your first group of eight, re-do the first two steps (airline group fares & individual airfares) if more than a day or so has passed. You must have up-to-date fare information.

Check Hotwire.com fares

Next, compare the airfares you already found with those on
Hotwire.com (opens in this window)
Hotwire.com (opens in new window).

When getting prices on Hotwire, do not okay “red eye” flights, non-jet aircraft, or other options.

With Hotwire, you travel on a major full-service airline, but do not find out the airline name or times until you pay. This often makes Hotwire cheaper than sites like Expedia.com that allow you to pick specific flights.

Hotwire and priceline enable airlines to get rid of excess inventory—seats that would have gone unsold—at steep discounts without their regular customers knowing.

Hotwire gives you a deadline for paying (usually two hours), so you have to do the next step fairly quickly. Do not give Hotwire your credit card number.

Priceline.com

Pull up
Priceline.com Air (opens in new window)
Priceline.com Air (opens in same window)
and punch in your airports and dates.

Write down the best prices you see.

Priceline offers two booking options:
1) discounted flights where you choose your airline and times similar to Expedia.com and
2) a “name your own price” bidding option for a greater discount where you cannot pick your flights or times.

Your group will want to save by bidding.

You fly on a major full service airline, but will not know its name or flight times until you pay. (For flights within the U.S. you could leave anytime between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m. and arrive as late as 12:30 a.m.)

You fly either nonstop or with one connection, unless you need more connections to reach an isolated location.

Consider season and time of week

Think about the flights you saw on Expedia.com and the ones priceline showed you a moment ago. Were there lots available at discount fares or very few?

If few, you may not be able to confirm all your people at lower fares.

What is the season? Are you traveling to Florida during spring break, to Los Angeles during the Rose Bowl, or to Colorado during peak ski season?

Are you trying to leave Hawaii on Sunday when everyone is rushing back to work or school?

If you travel when everyone else does, you cannot expect as great a discount.

Determine your bid

You do not want to bid too low because you cannot re-bid immediately (although you find out several loopholes later on).

If you saw lots of flights available, you should bid at least 30 percent off the best fare on Expedia and priceline Air. You may increase this to as much as 40 percent or more if you travel at the very slowest times.

Exceptions are fares under $280. Just try 15 – 20% off these or 20 – 25% off during the slowest travel times.

In any case, your priceline bid should be at least 10 to 15% off the Hotwire price. You may have to adjust your bid so that the priceline total with taxes and fees achieves this 10 – 15 percent discount.

LAST-MINUTE FLIGHTS: If your group travel is at the last minute, bid a bit more than the best advance purchase fare that you missed. (Check the same days of week two or three weeks from now.) How much you increase this should depend on the number of flights available, how flexible you are—how willing you are to bid on alternate airports and dates, if this bid is rejected—and how much you wish to travel. Using the advanced purchase fare as a guide can create huge last-minute savings.

Submit your bid correctly

When priceline asks if you accept more than one connection or non-jet flights or red eye flights, say NO.

Saving these options allows you to bid again within 7 days. You can also bid again within seven days by changing your dates or airport.

Once you are sure that you have entered the correct dates and bid amount, give priceline your credit card number.

You are now committed. No refunds, no changes.

Be sure to write down and save the transaction number priceline gives you. This is important.

Priceline gets back to you within several minutes (usually within a minute or so). You can also go to Priceline.com and click on “Check your request” and use your transaction number to check your status.

Now go to —

What to do if your group bid is accepted (making sure your trip goes smoothly)

or

What to do if your group bid is rejected.

Hotwire.com

Priceline.com Air

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