Last week I was working with a client and was able to save her THOUSANDS of dollars on airfare for an upcoming trip. Thought I’d pass on the tip to you!

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Have you ever booked a flight and wondered if there was anything you could have done to have gotten a better deal? In a previous post I shared with you 3 Simple Money Saving Airfare Hacks, here’s another one to add to the list.

Rely on the Alliances

An airline alliance is basically a group of airlines that have come together so that they can serve their customers in other parts of the world. For example, I may live in the US and be a member of United’s Mileage Plus program. However, I’m planning a trip to Auckland and book a ticket on Air New Zealand. I can do this directly with Air New Zealand or I can do this through United since they’re in the same alliance. And either way I can credit the miles earned to my United account.

The main benefit of accruing the points in my United account rather than opening an account with Air New Zealand is that I will sooner have enough points for an award ticket or status benefits. Whereas if I open an account with all the different airlines I fly, then they’ll just be scattered about and never really add up to anything useful. It’s also easier to keep track of fewer accounts. The likelihood that I, as a US resident, will fly multiple times with United is greater than with Air New Zealand.

Note: there may be reasons to have accounts with airlines that you don’t really frequent, but that’s beyond the scope of this article.

Whose Benefit?

As mentioned earlier, the airlines formed the alliance for their benefit, namely to keep your business. Let’s look at our example again. Let’s say I want to fly from St. Louis (Missouri, US) to Auckland (New Zealand). There’s no direct flight and I don’t really want to have to piece together a bunch of separate flights. I also want to be able to check my suitcase in St. Louis and not see it again until Auckland.

This is where the alliance works. I can book the entire roundtrip through United, even though most of the time I won’t be on United flights. I’ll be on United from St. Louis to Chicago, then Air New Zealand from Chicago to Auckland. And, I’ll be able to say goodbye to my suitcase in St. Louis and not see it again until I’ve had my passport stamped by the Kiwis. On the return flight I’ll be on Air Canada from Auckland to Vancouver and from Vancouver to Chicago and then United from Chicago back to St. Louis. Again, my bags will be checked all the way through from Auckland to St. Louis. (I’ll still have to deal with them at customs but I won’t have to recheck them since they’ll already be tagged.)

So this makes booking flights much easier on the consumer since I only need to do so with my local airline. And it makes it better for the airline since they keep my business.

Save Money on Airfare

But this article is about saving money on airfare! So, what’s the airfare savings tip?

The other day I was working on a trip for a client. For the flight portion, she wanted two business class tickets between the US and Eastern Europe. The client’s preferred airline is American Airlines, so that was my starting place. I found the dates, times and cities that worked for her. However, the airfare was pricing at over $12,000 per ticket! So, I thought about seeing if I could book it on points. But, I noticed that it was a flight that was actually operated by British Airways.

So…

I went to the British Airways website and checked the flights there. I was able to book the SAME flight on British for just over $7000 for BOTH tickets! That’s approximately $18,000 in airfare savings for just two tickets. And, since they’re partner airlines, she’ll still be able to accrue the points in her American account and take advantage of her elite status with American for her British flight. (Although not as many points since the ticket was so significantly cheaper.)

As an added bonus, British was offering 1% cash back through Rakuten and American had no such offer.

Admittedly this was quite a unique example. Nonetheless, I would recommend trying this if the flight you’re booking is being operated by a partner airline anyway. What have you got to lose? A few minutes of an online search? If you’re concerned you’ll lose your seat on your original search, you can book that first. According to US law, you have 24 hours to cancel any flight that has a US destination or origination (there are exceptions, so do so at your own risk), so you really don’t have much to lose. But, keep in mind that since most airlines now use dynamic pricing, the ticket price may go up just because you’ve now made less seats available–not because the other airline is more expensive.

I really wish I would have though to take screenshots of the flight listings because this really was so unbelievable. If I come across something similar in the future, I’ll be sure to do so and update you.

Resources

Sometimes, like in the examples above, you can figure out some of the partnerships through looking at the bookings. Based on the routing, it’s safe to assume that United, Air New Zealand, and Air Canada are all in the same alliance. And American and British are in the same Alliance. The airlines used in the routing would be my main focus if I was going to search pricing elsewhere. But, you could always search through any other partner as well–especially those in “cheaper” countries.

How do you know where to search? Once you’ve picked your flight, consult the partnership lists below to determine where else you can look.

There are three main airline alliances. Not every airline is in an Alliance. As of this writing, below is the breakdown (alphabetically) with links to everything.