How to get a Steal on Airfare

[OakLeaf]

The other thing is that you usually save a LOT of money by flying at ungodly hours. If you're capable of getting to an airport at 4 a.m. to fly at 5:30, and getting home at midnight on your return trip - just for example - the fare can be half or less of what it costs to fly at normal human hours. I'm not physically capable of it myself, but I sure have looked longingly at those fares.

And finally - use the travel agent sites to do your comparison shopping, play around with different schedules, etc., but make your final booking on the airline's own site. We've found out the hard way that if you can't make your own reservation the way you want it, there's a reason. The first two issues we had were with brick-and-mortar travel agents, but more recently we've had an issue with an online travel agent too. Trust me, you do NOT want to arrive at an airport in another country where you don't really speak the language, what you thought was three hours early for your flight ... to discover that the e-tickets that were reserved in your name don't match the itinerary you have from the travel agent, and that you and your spouse are booked on different flights. (Still enormously grateful to the ticket agent who spent most of those three hours on the phone to the USA and got everything straight in time for us to literally RUN for the plane.)

(Also - Pittsburgh to Columbus isn't a difficult drive, but it's over three hours ... You might could check Dayton or even Cincinnati, though. But if you do consider Cincinnati, take rush hour traffic schedules into consideration, because the airport is on the opposite side of the city from Columbus, and it could easily wind up being a four-hour drive if the traffic is bad.)