Fare of the Day: Detroit, MI (DTW) to Salt Lake City, UT (SLC) $201 RT, including all taxes on Southwest.

Travel 7-days a week through September 26, 2012 if available. Fares are available for one-way purchase for half the roundtrip price. No minimum stay requirement.

Fare of the Day: Boston, MA (BOS) to Lisbon, Portugal (LIS) $465 RT including all taxes on SATA and TAP airlines.

Get a chance to load up on delicious Pasteis de Nata with this great price to Lisbon. Travel on select dates, mostly Tuesdays and Fridays through the end of March. Found via Orbitz and flytap.com

Fare of the Day: Portland, OR (PDX) to Washington, DC (DCA) $222 RT, including all taxes on Delta Airlines.

Travel any day of the week if available. Flight also available to Washington DC-Dulles to Portland. Check out other fares from the Washington DC area to west coast cities that are similar in price here. Fare found via Orbitz.

Fare of the Day: San Francisco, CA (SFO) to Atlanta, GA (ATL) $163 RT, including all taxes on United Airlines.

Travel any day of the week if available during a 330-day travel period. No minimum stay required. Also available from San Francisco to Detroit, and Memphis. Looks like it is a United fare war against the Delta Atlanta hub, book soon while it lasts.

Fare of the Day: Los Angeles, CA (LAX) to Zurich, Switzerland (ZRH) $457 RT, including all taxes. SWISS is the carrier on the international leg of the flight.

This fare can be found on select dates in February and March on Vayama.com. You must be flexible with dates to find this price, but it is mostly availble for midweek departures.

It’s been nearly nine months since the Department of Transportation (DOT) announced that airlines and travel agents, including online travel agencies, would be required to advertise and display airfares with all mandatory taxes and fees included. After a few extensions, that rule will finally go into effect. On January 26, 2012 all airfares must be shown with taxes and fees included. That means the price we report for domestic flights will appear to have suddenly gone up by $20 to $40. Here's the background.

On international flights, this is a big win for consumers, because international taxes can sometimes be more than the base fare and this can be quite the sticker shock when the final price is displayed. 

As you can see in the example below, flights from Boston to London are being advertised on American’s main page at $250 each way.  On the next few pages, you see a fare of $41 from BOS to LHR and $458 returning from LHR to BOS for a total round-trip fare of $499.  However, on the final page, your total trip cost after the taxes are added is $697, which is almost $200 higher than what is initially shown.  You'll also see on Orbitz the difference is even greater, with the screen showing an $81 round-trip airfare in bold print with $616 in taxes and fees making up the rest of the actual $697 total price.

This is why we at Airfarewatchdog have always displayed international fares with taxes included.  For domestic flights, these mandatory taxes and fees usually add up to about $21 round-trip for nonstop flights and typically range within a few dollars of $40 for connecting flights (depending on which airport you are connecting through).  For flights that have a stop, but keep the same flight number and don't change planes, taxes tend to be around $30 round-trip. Since we currently post most of our domestic fares as just the base fare, we want to give you a heads up that although fares will appear to go up $20 to $40 later this month, they will now include taxes and fees.

For example, below are two Airfarewatchdog-verified fares for nonstop flights from Detroit to Chicago-Midway.  These fares are both the same price, with the Southwest fare showing $98 RT pre-tax and the Delta fare showing $119 RT including taxes.  We found the Delta fare on Orbitz, which shows tax-included fares on its flexible search, and the Southwest fare on Southwest.com, which shows only the base fare initially. So, even though it looks like the Southwest flight is cheaper, remember that after taxes they are the exact same price.

Another example on a connecting flight from Minneapolis to Ontario shows the Southwest fare at $268 RT pre-tax and the United fare at $309 including taxes.  Once again, these are basically the same price in the end, with Southwest.com giving us the base fare initially and Orbitz giving us the tax-included fare initially.  Also, please note that the outbound flight on Southwest has no plane change, which results in a lower tax total, and on Orbitz the taxes differ slightly depending on the airline due to different connecting cities.  Starting Jan. 26, 2012, all sites will be including taxes for all fares.

So, why haven’t we done this all along?  Based on the way airlines release fares, our methodology includes searching over a 330-day travel period to find the lowest fare we could recommend on a specific route. Our searches typically brought back only base fares. As long as the airlines listed fares the same way, we were able to give an apples-to-apples comparison on the base price. At the same time, we provided as much guidance as possible on what to expect for additional taxes and fees.  In an effort to search as many routes as possible and include all airlines selling a particular fare, we opted for displaying the base fare only for domestic airfares.  It would be significantly more time consuming, and reduce the number of fares we could find and share, to find the taxes for each airfare on each airline since the taxes would differ slightly between airlines depending on connecting airport and how many connections.  Though the displayed fares may appear to be higher, the upside to the new rule is you will know right away exactly what you’ll be paying for your flight. 

As for baggage fees, that’s a different story.  Since checking baggage is not technically required for air transportation, the rule doesn’t require baggage fees to be included in the advertised airfare.  However, there will also be a new requirement for airlines and travel agencies to display the specific baggage fees for all potential classifications in the confirmation email after booking.  This means that they can’t just give a range of fees, but must include the specific fee for the customer purchasing the ticket or a list of every possible baggage fee that could pertain to the customer (online purchase, at airport, elite status, etc.).  This info can be displayed with a hyperlink directly to a specific location on the airline website listing all baggage fees.  Most airlines have already provided such pages listing optional fees and we’ve compiled all the links for you here.  Of course, finding out the baggage fees after your purchase may make you decide you don’t want to purchase that ticket anymore.  Along with these new regulations, there will be a 24-hour grace period for all airline ticket purchases so you can cancel your reservation and get your money back within 24-hours of purchasing.

We will continue to pass along the best fares we find and link you to where we find that price.  With the new rule beginning January 26, all sites should be initially advertising all their fares including taxes and that will be the price that we pass along to you.

Fare of the Day: Cleveland, OH (CLE) to Salt Lake City, UT (SLC) $160 RT, including all taxes on American Airlines.

Valid for travel anyday except Friday and Sunday. We found several dates available in January and February. A 10-day advance purchase is required. No minimum stay needed.

Fare of the Day: Boston, MA (BOS) to Fort Lauderdale, FL (FLL) $118 RT, including all taxes on Continental Airlines.

Good for travel on Tuesday and Wednesdays from January 10th through March 14th, 2012. Perfect for those with a flexible schedule looking to escape the Boston winter cold. There is a 7-day advance purchase restriction and no minimum stay is required.

Recently, Spirit Airlines changed their fee for booking on their website, dubbed the "Passenger Usage Fee", from $8.99 each way to $16.99 each way. On their "Optional Fees Chart" it shows that the fee is $8.99 to $16.99 per customer, each way. Until this week, we were only able to find the $16.99 each way fee and not anything lower other than flights to Panama or Colombia, which don't have the fee at all. However, this week we have found certain fares that have the lower $8.99 each way passenger usage fee. It appears to be one-way fares that end in a penny. (ex. $8.01, $20.01, etc...) With Spirit charging different online booking fees for different types of fares, it can be quite confusing to find the actual lowest total price for their fares.  

For example, below is a screen shot showing two different searches from Chicago to New York after choosing the lowest available fares shown for each search. On the left, we searched using the $50 off promo code that Spirit is currently offering. After searching using the promo code, we chose $4 each way fares to get a total base fare of $8 after the $50 discount. However, with the "Passenger Usage Fee" (online booking fee) at $33.98, this method of searching yields a higher total price ($63.48) than if we search without using the $50 off promo code. On the right, we searched without any promo code and the lowest one-way fares to appear were $8.01 each way. Because these fares have the lower ($17.98) passenger usage fee, the total price ($55.40) is actually less than if using the promo code. So much for $50 off.  By the way, the only way to avoid the "Passenger Usage Fee", is to book your tickets at the airport.  Since this fee is per customer, each way, you could save quite a bit by making the trip to the airport to book your seats.

Fare of the Day: Atlanta, GA (ATL) to Anchorage, AK (ANC) $420 RT, including all taxes on Continental or United.

Fare requires a 14-day advance purchase, travel any day of the week if available. 330-day travel period, but many Summer dates are not available.