Save On Airfare By Tracking Flight Prices, Repricing Tickets

I imagine that most OMAAT readers already do this, but I figure that it’s a topic that’s worth covering, and discussing the best ways to go about it…

Lack of change fees make repricing tickets easy

One of the positive things to come from the pandemic is that airlines (at least in the United States) largely eliminated change fees on most kinds of fares, with basic economy fares typically being the only ones that don’t offer this kind of flexibility.

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Back in the day, booking an airline ticket was a pretty big commitment. You had to be sure that your plans were actually firm, or else you’d be on the hook for a change fee of around $200, should you want to adjust the schedule. The cost of that can add up quickly, especially if multiple people are traveling.

Nowadays I book flights much more proactively, for those fares that don’t have change fees. I’ll lock in a ticket in advance, and in the event that my plans change, I can always bank a credit that I can use toward a future flight. This is especially easy on airlines I fly with frequently, since I’ll have no issues using those credits before they expire (if they do even expire).

The other benefit of a lack of change fees is that it takes away the guessing game of figuring out the best time to book flights. Before change fees were eliminated, I always put a lot of thought into whether a flight price would go down or not, since I wanted to lock in the lowest price.

That’s the other beautiful thing that has changed — nowadays you can just reprice flights if the cost goes down. So if you book a flight for $200, and then the price later drops to $100, you can be issued a voucher for $100 that you can use toward a future flight. That’s awesome!

The best ways to track flight price changes

What’s the best way to actually go about monitoring flight prices, so that you can reprice them if/when the price does drop? The way I see it, there are two best websites for this — Google Flights and KAYAK. I set a price alert for every itinerary that I book, so let me talk about those two options.

Track flight prices with Google Flights

Google Flights is a generally awesome tool, and my first stop every time that I book a revenue airline ticket. There are lots of handy features about Google Flights, and one of my favorites is the ability to track prices for a flight.

Just go to Google Flights and do a search for the flight that you’re looking for. When you get to the results page, you’ll see a “Track prices” button on the page. If you toggle that, then you’ll get an email every time that flight costs on that date change.

If you specifically want to see if the cost of one flight changes (which makes sense if you’ve already booked a specific flight), then click on that specific flight, and then click the “Track prices” button.

You’ll receive a message confirming that you’re subscribed to price changes.

Now, the catch with these Google Flights alerts is that you’ll be alerted by email every single time that the price of a flight changes. Unfortunately there’s no way to specify that you just want to be alerted if the price drops, rather than if the price changes, since you’d also receive alerts if the prices goes up.

The only downside here is that it could clutter up your inbox a bit.

Track flight prices with KAYAK

KAYAK is one of the better online travel agencies out there, and it also has a great flight price tracking feature. First you need to get a (free) account with KAYAK. There are a couple of ways to go about setting an alert. Once you search an itinerary, you can just “save” a flight (by “hearting” it).

Then it will show in your KAYAK account, and you can track how the prices change. Alternatively, from your KAYAK account, you can also go to the “Notifications” section, and you can click the “Create Price Alert” button there. You can create a flight price alert from there as well.

Rather than emailing you, you can track prices in your KAYAK account, or can get notifications through the KAYAK app. So some people may prefer Google Flights since you’re emailed every time there’s a price change, while others may prefer simply having notifications through KAYAK, since you won’t receive as many emails.

Bottom line

With airlines no longer having change fees, it’s easier than ever before to lock in a flight, and then reprice the ticket if the price drops. This is pretty awesome, since it takes the risk out of booking flights.

Fortunately there are some ways to automate this, like Google Flights and KAYAK, which will alert you of price changes. I set these alerts every time that I book a flight, and I’m always pleasantly surprised by how often prices go down.

Do you track flight prices after booking and then reprice?