Intro
Looking to save money flying? Learn how our family has flown cheap for under $99/ticket round-trip many times over the years without paying a penny for bags, seat selections, or food/drinks on low-cost airlines!
Choose the Right Airline
To fly cheap, it’s most important to start with choosing the right airline from among the ultra low-cost carriers, including Allegiant, Frontier, Spirit, & Sun Country.
What makes these airlines different is their business model. They break out expenses other airlines bake into the ticket prices by starting with extremely low base fares then adding on extra fees for baggage, seat selection, & food/drinks.Â
This itemization creates an incredible opportunity for frugal minded people to fly extremely cheap by paying only the super low base fare price.
But how can a person pay the low base fare price when a family needs to select seats to sit together, or bring more clothes & gadgets than can fit in a tiny personal item, or needs food/drink on a long flight? Â
Read on to learn tricks we’ve discovered to avoid all of these costs and fly for as little money as possible!
Tricks to Avoid Baggage Fees
One of the best ways to fly cheap is to use tricks to avoid paying any baggage fees.
The ultra low-cost airlines only allow small personal items for free, including pursues or laptop bags. But they also allow a small sized backpack, and therein lies the key to avoiding fees.
While gate workers sometimes monitor roller bag sizes, in the dozens of flights we’ve taken, they’ve never once examined backpack sizes – probably because it’s hard to tell a backpack’s size when someone is wearing it and it’s facing away from gate agents.
Because these airlines charge as much as $120 round-trip per carry-on per person, stuffing our backpacks with our belongings has saved us literally hundreds of dollars each flight.
To help fit more clothes in a backpack, here’s a tip – tightly roll up each piece of clothing into a log shape. Not only does this allow you to fit more clothes, but it also prevents wrinkles in your clothes!
And for parents, did you know kids also get the same baggage allowances as adults if they have their own tickets? Another trick to get more space is giving the kids their own backpacks and filling them up with light items that take up space.
Another trick for parents with a young child is using a large diaper bag. Airlines do not charge extra for diaper bags, so along with diapers and other baby items, you can use the diaper bag to store excess clothes.
Tricks to Avoid Seat Fees
We’ve never paid extra to select seats in dozens of flights, yet our family has always ended up together in the same row. How? It’s thanks to a little-known policy airlines have of always trying to seat families together.
Airlines do their best to keep your family together, and they do this by seeking out adjacent seats in empty rows on the plane. And there’s another beneficial effect that often comes from this.
In our experience, the empty rows we get assigned are often premium seats near the front of the plane. These are often empty due to having the highest fees for those who pay to select.
So, by not paying extra fees to select our seats, which are often as much as $30 round-trip per person, we often end up in more desirable seats than if we had paid!
And if your family someday has the misfortune of being seated apart, flight attendants are very helpful with re-seating once on board to ensure parents and kids can stay together.Â
Save on Food/Drink Costs
Food/drinks are outrageously expensive both in airport and on plane, and most people assume they have no choice but to pay up if they want to eat or drink. But we’ve found tricks that allow us to avoid these costs.
Airlines allow a small bag with food in it in addition to your other baggage, just as if you’d bought food from an airport restaurant and brought it on to the plane, so we take advantage of this and pack our own healthy food at home to save money
Some people also assume that due to the TSA no-liquids rule, they have no choice but to buy drinks after security or on the plane. But there’s a trick to avoid paying these high prices too.
While you can’t bring liquids through security, you can bring empty drink bottles. So, once we’re through security, we fill up our empty bottles for free at water fountains and bring them with us onto the plane.
Trade-offs to Fly Cheap
While there are some negatives to flying on the ultra low-cost airlines, you may be surprised at how small the differences are, and there are also some myths. Let’s explore and debunk them.
Safety – are these airlines safe? Â
Some people may think that the low prices these airlines offer must mean they’re taking shortcuts on safety & maintenance. Thankfully, this is a myth. All airlines are held to strict safety standards.
Rest assured – according to a recent FAA report on airline safety:
“…there’s no evidence in accident data that would support ranking individual airlines based on their safety records… rankings of airlines based on past accident records therefore provide no information to consumers.”
Cancellations/Delays – do these airlines have higher rates of cancellations/delays? Â
They do, but you may be surprised how small the differences are compared to the bigger carriers.
According to Bureau of Transportation Statistics Data from 2023, the ultra low-cost carriers average 1.50% cancellations and 28.3% delays while the biggest carriers average 1.16% cancellations and 19.7% delays.
That’s a difference in cancellation rate of just 0.34%, or in other words, 1 extra flight cancellation in every 300 flights taken.
While cancellation rates are basically the same, one thing to be aware of is that ultra low-cost carriers have far less out-bound flights weekly which can make it more difficult to get a timely replacement flight if yours is cancelled.
Here’s a comparison of cancellation and delay rates by carrier.
The ultra low-cost carriers:
- Allegiant – 0.68% Cancellations, 25.7% Delays
- Spirit – 1.70% Cancellations, 28.6% Delays
- Frontier – 2.13% Cancellations, 30.7% Delays
- Delta – 1.02% Cancellations, 16.17% DelaysÂ
- American – 1.06% Cancellations, 22.7% Delays
- United – 1.4% Cancellations, 20.27% Delays
Comfort/Amenities – how do comfort and amenities compare on these airlines? Â
We barely notice a difference in comfort flying on ultra low-cost airlines compared to bigger carriers. The biggest difference we’ve found is that some of these carriers have slightly less leg room, and some have seats without a recline function.
On amenities, beyond the lack of complimentary food/drink, the seat backs also do not have screens built in. For us, since we bring our own electronic devices with us, this has never been a concern.
Bottom Line
Using the cost savings tricks outlined in this article, I calculate in the next section that the average family with kids would save a whopping $4,262/yr in air travel costs compared to flying the biggest carriers.
For our family, this massive cost savings outweighs the limited downsides. If you’ve never flown on one of these airlines before, I highly recommend flying cheap on low-cost airlines – your wallet will thank you!
We hope you found the tricks in this article helpful to save money and fly cheap. Got any tricks you’d like to share? Let us know in the comments.
Summary of using the tricks in this article to fly cheap on low-cost airlines:
The Pros
- Massive cost savings
- Often better seats than if you’d paid to select your own
- Just as safe as larger and pricier airlines
- Similar on-time/cancellation rates as larger airlines
- Similar flight experience as larger airlines
The Cons
- Potentially a little less legroom and lack of reclining ability of seats
- No free drinks/snacks on the plane
- Less outbound flights than larger airlines if cancellations occur
Savings
The math behind the savings:
Save:
- Avg Base Airfare Costs:
- Big 3 carriers: $400/ticket
- Low-cost carriers: $104/ticket
- $400-$104 = $296 savings/ticket at base fares
- Avg flights/yr per person in US: 3.6 flights
- Avg family w/ kids: 2 adults + 2 kids = 4 tickets
Time Required:
- 1 hr to use these savings tricks
Results:
- 4 tickets * 3.6 flights/yr * $296 savings/ticket
- =$4,262/yr saved
- $4,262 saved / 1 hr
- =$1,000+/hr savings rate
