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I'm Joshua Jones, your moderator for this section. |
Welcome to the Missionary Airfare section of the Missionary Resource Center. This section is designed to help you learn more about air travel, and in particular, finding cheap / discount tickets and great deals as you travel.
As a missionary myself, I travel quite frequently, and I'm always keeping an eye out to see what the airlines are doing with fares and schedules. In this section of the site, we'll take a look at a number of online resources for purchasing cheap tickets, as well as websites that can enhance your travel experience. Some of the sites listed are great for finding consolidator fares or student discounts; others, like Seat Guru specialize in a niche area. Seat Guru is a neat site that tells you everything you could want to know about each seat on the airplane. I often use this on long international flights to be sure I don't end up next to the lavatory.
There aren't many books or videos that would be appropriate for the airfare section, so this one will be mostly link and resource heavy. Please feel free to add your favorite travel agent or discounter to the list; just be sure to give us a helpful description. Also, keep an eye on the articles section and discussion forums, as we'll cover some of the harder to find areas of airfare information such as national airlines, chartering flights, and mastering the art of multi-leg trips.
Got a tip or trick for getting great deals for individuals or teams? Please share it with us in the discussion forum. God bless, and Bon voyage!
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Taking a look at some of the different methods of purchasing airline tickets and how to save you money.
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Website: www.air-fare.com/
Telephone: 1-888-525-8200
Website: http://www.airfarewatchdog.com/
This site has some great last minute deals on flights. Check this out if you're traveling last minute and you're flexible. They offer fares from Southwest and JetBlue, which you won't find with the bigger guys like Travelocity or Expedia.
Website: http://www.airtreks.com/
airtreks.com specializes in around the world and multi-city airfares.
Telephone: 1.877.AIRTREKS or + 1.415.977.7100
Website: www.andrewcram.com/frequentflyer.html
A useful resource providing links to frequent flyer mileage earning opportunities for online purchases as well as various free online charitable giving organizations.
Website: www.bestfares.com/
They have a section called "Snooze you Loose" with last-minute deals on flying nationwide. Also, be sure to check out their "Internet-only" fares. The only down-side is that many of their best fares require an annual membership of around $60US.
Telephone: Customer service: 1-800-880-1234
Website: www.cheaptickets.com/
A basic online airfare search engine. Good prices, nothing spectacular.
Website: www.expedia.com/
One of the other popular fare search engines.
Telephone: 1 (800) EXPEDIA [ 1 (800) 397-3342]
Website: www.farechase.com
This is another travel meta-search engine that is based out of Israel.
Website: http://www.farecast.com/
This impressive site offers a range of travel planning tools that will help you determine the best time to travel. I love the easy to use tools, graphs, and charts they offer. Be sure to spend a few minutes on this site checking all their neat tools and diagrams. The downside is that they seem to be limited to US flights at the moment.
Website: www.flyertalk.com
This site has some good discussion boards about various aspects of travel.
Website: www.hotwire.com
Another major player in the online aifare game. Good prices, only they don't show the airline until you have purchased your ticket.
Telephone: 1-866-HOTWIRE (1-866-468-9473)
Website: www.johnnyjet.com
Somewhat of a portal site, most of their links are already listed here.
Website: www.kayak.com
This website searches hundreds of sites for the lowest airfare. They are often more competitive than Travelocity and easier to use.
Website: www.lastminutetravel.com
Telephone: Customer support: 1-866-210-3290
Website: www.luxus.ca
Luxus Adventures is a Christian owned company that specializes in providing travel arrangements for missionaries and church groups from anywhere to anywhere.
Telephone: 1-877-335-8987
Website: www.mobissimo.com
This site searches hundreds of airlines for low fares. Pretty competitive.
Website: http://mtstravel.com/
A travel agency that specializes in offering discounted missionary airfare rates. We've used these guys a number of times with great success.
Telephone: 877-908-8899
Website: www.orbitz.com/
Orbitz offers a matrix display comparing all flight results with different airlines and number of stops.
Telephone: 1-888-656-4546
Website: www.priceline.com
Bid what you are willing to pay. More flexibility offers cheaper fares. Often, if they can't meet your bid, they will e-mail you with a counter-offer.
Telephone: 1-800-774-2354
Website: www.qixo.com
This is a meta searcher that searches a ton of different travel websites at one time.
Website: http://www.raptim.org
Raptim is a travel organisation for religious and humanitarian organisations involved in missionary and relief work. Customers include many churches, ministries and development organisations.
Telephone: +1 773 262 4971
Website: http://www.rewardsdb.com
An easy site to find out ways of getting free airline miles, points or cashback from shopping, online activity etc. Also includes useful traveller resources like advice on the best/worst seats in many planes.
Website: www.seatguru.com/
This site will tell you everything you need to know about selecting a seat on your next flight. They offer very detailed ratings of every seat on tons of airplanes, which ones have leg room, engine noise, etc...
Website: www.sidestep.com
Sidestep is unique in that they offer a search bar you can install in your browser. It automatically detects when you are searching for airfares with other sites and offers to show its comparison prices.
Website: www.site59.com
Site 59 offers "Last-minute-deals" but carries package deals only.
Website: www.skyauction.com
This site basically has plane tickets/packages up for auction. Definitely worth a look. Be sure to visit "Hot Deals," "Auctions Closing Soon," and "Last Minute Getaways."
Website: www.skyauction.com
Skyauction.com lets you bid on unused travel inventory such as packages and airfare. Great for last-minute travel.
Website: www.studentuniverse.com
This is a great site for students to check out low airfares. Sometimes you won't know which airline you’ve selected until after the purchase, but it appears to have good prices and a wide search.
Telephone: Within U.S.: 1.800.272.9676; Outsid
Website: www.traveland.com/
Traveland is a great place to find deals to Latin America. Emercy frequently uses them for our short-term teams to Costa Rica and Nicaragua.
Telephone: 800-321-6336
Website: www.travelnow.com
Website: www.travelocity.com
Travelocity is one of the top dogs for good reason. They have great fares and will let you store flight searches and be notified by e-mail anytime a flight changes by more than $25.
Website: www.travelzoo.com
Travelzoo is the Internet's largest publisher of sales and specials available directly from hundreds of travel companies, listing sales and specials from more than 200 companies.
Website: http://webflyer.com/
This site has some useful tools for frequent flyers (i.e. how to get the max value out of your miles).
Have a missions related question? Ask it here in the discussion forums and our volunteer staff will be glad to help you find an answer.
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