Search for fares early in the morning and on weekends

Airlines play games with airfares, sometimes, it seems, merely to annoy their competitors. If you check a New York to Seattle fare before going to bed one night it might be $228 round-trip, but check at 8 AM the following day and it could be $108. But that sneak sale, which could be valid for travel up to 330 days in the future, will probably last only a few hours, and seats will sell quickly. So be an early bird and catch these unadvertised deals. And for reasons that we can only speculate on, airlines lower fares on Saturday mornings and during the weekend (this is also when those “fat finger” airfare mistakes seem to happen). The aforementioned peak summer deals on Virgin to London popped up on a Saturday afternoon, and those now famous 88 cent USAir roundtrips on a Saturday morning.