What are some cheap airplane tickets?

Answer 1

There are basically two ways to get low fares on airline tickets.

One of them is to buy your tickets well in advance of your travel date ... usually at least 3 weeks before, to get the best price. If you book online and have some "wiggle room" in your plans, you can try adjusting your travel dates a couple of days in either direction to get a lower rate.

Another way is to sign up with an airline for notice of discount tickets being offered. This is probably not worth it unless you have an extremely flexible schedule and don't really have a specific destination in mind, you just want to go somewhere. Also, the tickets are often not that much cheaper than the typical prices for 21-day advance fares anyway.

At one time, flying standby (which requires even more flexibility) was a good way to score cheap tickets, but airlines have gotten a lot more efficient in scheduling and booking flights, so they have less of an incentive to sell seats for whatever they can get... the days of planes flying mostly empty are over; nearly all flights nowadays are booked pretty much solid and flying standby probably won't save you much and could leave you stranded for several days while you wait for an opening on a flight home.