It is quite frustrating, if you think about it. You spend several hours scouring the internet for the lowest airfare only to pay extra for services that were usually offered for free. These services include wireless connection, meals, beverage, booking, baggage and even for air miles redemption.

For example, an underage passenger can be charged by as much as $700 if he traveled with his pet and one of his bags was over the weight limit. Travelers have been quite vocal about the recent fees being charged for checking baggage and could not believe that carrying personal things have become more of a luxury than a necessity.

Unfortunately, there is nothing much that you can do about these fees. The only way you can stick to your budget is by being creative.

For starters, you should learn how to bring just the essentials with you. It would help if you list all these items down and go over them repeatedly so that you can further trim the list down to the basics.

You might also want to check out the many gadgets available for the ultralight travelers, which include folding headphones and stands for your smart phones. There are even clothes that are made from nanofiber which weigh lighter.

Of course, there is also the old-school way of hunting cheap tickets. There are actually a lot of tricks which you can employ to grab discounted airfare. Booking in advance, subscribing to email alerts or RSS feeds and even having flexible travel plans are just a few of the most effective methods of enjoying bargain airfare.

Just remember to double-check the terms and conditions when booking in order to avoid any inconvenience.

Of course, if you know certain tricks to finding cheap airfare, you do not have to worry. Consider the following tips:

1. Choose Major Airports – you might be surprised at how cheaper it is to fly out from a major hub. In fact, you can save as much as $150 if you make an effort to go to the nearest major airport. But you should not forget to include in your calculation the cost of parking and gas.

2. Consider Discount Airlines – although you might prefer flying with your favorite airline, times like this might call for looking at other providers. A lot of discount airlines can offer you cheaper prices but you should not expect to travel non-stop.

3. Check Airline Tweets – getting the latest updates from the airlines’ twitter accounts is a great way to find out about offers of airfare discounts, especially last minute promos.

4. Consider a Vacation Package – most often than not, you will spend so much more on buying airplane tickets than booking a vacation package. Even if you will not use the hotel accommodation and the other extras included in the package, you will still end up with a really good airfare deal.

5. Look for Compassion or Bereavement Fares – you might not know this but majority of the major airline offer discounts for emergency or bereavement. You will only need to provide documentation to establish the emergency and you can enjoy as much as 10 percent off the airfare.

If you think about it, the key to finding cheap airline tickets is only a matter of knowing where to look. When booking flights, just make sure that you have read and understood the terms of agreement in order to avoid any inconvenience.

Be Spontaneous!
Bargains abound for adventurous travellers. Try to be flexible with your travel schedule so you can take advantage of the unbelievable last-minute deals offered by airlines. Most booking sites give discounts for remaining untaken seats, so try to book your flight around two weeks before you plan on leaving. However, if your destination is quite popular, or it’s the peak season or the holidays, chances are there would be no empty slots.

Take Advantage of Introductory Rates!
New, up-and-coming airlines usually offer introductory rates to passengers. The downside would be that compared to the more established names in the industry, these budget airlines may not be visible on popular booking sites. You need to look for them yourself, so do your research and look around before booking a flight.

Always Look at Alternatives
Keep in mind that getting really cheap flights entails having to do a lot of shopping around. Browse through the different booking sites, and compare the various deals they are offering. Consider also the convenience factor, and hidden booking fees and taxes, so you can determine just exactly how much you’re really paying for your ticket.

More Layovers = More Savings
If you don’t mind a few stops, choose the flights with the most layovers. Passengers usually get a substantial reduction for this minor inconvenience. Usually the more stops your plane has to make, the cheaper your flight would be. So if you have time on your hands, choose a flight with a lot of layovers.

Mid-Week Madness
Make sure that your departure and arrival happens in the middle of the week. There is a greater demand for weekend flights, thus there is a significant price increase for Friday to Monday flights.

Choose an Off-Season Trip
Surely every destination, even places with year-round great weather and hot spots, has a lean season. Find out what the peak season is and try to avoid it, this is usually when prices tend to rise dramatically. Look at clues such as the weather, vacation dates, traveller’s schedules or popular events. Cheap airline tickets are available for those who try to avoid the herd. Head to your destination when it is the least likely to be packed.

Trust the Professionals
Travel agents are usually in on the best deals in the market. If you plan to spend a lot of money for your airfare, they can usually give you huge discounts and additional incentives. Sometimes it may be cheaper to explore your options first with a travel agent.

Flying into secondary airports
All big cities in the world have secondary airports. These are usually far-off from the heart of the city and are smaller. This kind of airport is usually used by budget airlines because of its cheaper operational costs—which means cheaper tickets as well. But do not expect any bonuses on these airlines like food, drinks, or pillows. Even though they are short on service, they make it up in cheaper tickets.

Flying through other routes
Also, you should try being flexible by finding different ways to arrive at your destination. In some cases, it can be more inexpensive to fly to Madrid first before getting a cheap flight towards Rome, than to fly directly to Rome. Direct flights usually cost more so you might want to add several stops into your trip so that the cost of your ticket can go down.

Looking for the foreign website of an airline
Did you know that when you have a powerful currency, you can actually book on the airline page of a weaker currency? Searching for the Canadian counterpart of the website of British Airways can get you cheaper plane tickets to London. A technique like this works great when your currency is performing well, although you can still possibly save money even when the currencies very similar due to taxes and fees.

Use your student discount perks
There are more discounts available for the student like flexible student plane tickets, cheaper train tickets, discount cards, and many more. Just have with you your student identification card. Use the STA Travel to find cheap airline deals because they focus in student travel along with finding amazing deals for students.

Join a rewards program
Another great way to bag free upgrades, free companion tickets, and even free flights is through many airline rewards programs. Non-frequent fliers may take longer to earn points, but frequent fliers must enlist at a rewards program in order to grab freebies. Non-frequent fliers may want to ponder on getting a rewards credit card which they can covert to a free flight.

Subscribe in airline newsletters
Be in the know of the latest flight deals and promotions when you sign up to industry or airline newsletters. Usually it is only through these newsletters that you will hear about these great deals. A few clicks over the airline sites are all you need to do. Also, you can easily delete the newsletters if you are not interested in flying for a certain period in time.

In the past, many air travel consultants were recommending travelers to book their cheap flights directly on the websites of airlines to save the fees charged by online travel agencies for booking, which add around $5 to the airfare.

But now that the large OTAs such as Expedia, Travelocity and Orbitz have eliminated the fees to be more competitive with other OTAs and with the airline websites, you now see a level playing field between these two types of booking sites.

And since you can get cheap airline tickets from both these sites, your basis now of deciding where to book your flight shifts from the fare price to other factors such as your loyalty to the airline website, additional benefits provided by OTAs, the crediting of frequent flier miles and discounts provided by OTAs for associated services such as hotels and car bookings.

The advantages of using OTAs over airline websites include your ability to search the cheapest airline tickets across airlines, whether legacy airlines or low-cost carriers, and your ability to get the conveniences of one-stop shopping. OTAs provide various car rentals, hotels and destinations, in addition to keeping you updated with airfare deals that keep changing by the minute.

Many travelers however prefer airline websites because they feel some kind of affinity to the airline websites and they can get bonuses on their frequent flier miles. They also explain that it is easier for them to work out solutions with the airlines if problems arise since they booked with the airline websites. Oftentimes, if there are errors in the tickets and travelers call the OTAs, they are referred back to the airlines.

Many others, meanwhile, get the best of both worlds. They surf the OTAs for the best deals and then book with the websites of the airlines offering the best deals, or if they see that the OTAs do not charge for booking changes within the day for their flights, they book with the OTAs to take advantage of possible airfare discounts within the day.

All in all, the one factor that will help you get the cheapest airline tickets is your access to information on the best airfare deals. So search both OTA web sites and airline websites and then compare fares and benefits.

According to a study, about 10 trillion frequent-flier miles worth $165 billion have not been used, and about 20 percent of these will never be used because they have expired or they have been canceled because of changes in rules.

Among the things that you can do to preserve your frequent flier mileage while you are not traveling is to use your affiliated credit cards that add equivalent points to your miles whenever you shop. Another is to subscribe to online services that remind you expiration dates.

When the frequent flier programs started in the 1980s, there were no expiration dates and other restrictive usage rules, but now airlines have lots of rules that have become confusing.

If you are a customer of American Airlines, US Airways and United Airlines and your account does not record any activity such as redemption or travel for 18 straight months, your entire account is canceled and you lose an opportunity to get a free or cheap flight. Alaska Air and Delta Air Lines give an allowance of two years before they cancel accounts while Continental Airlines has rules of canceling accounts that are inactive for 18 months.

Continental however said it has not yet implemented its 18-month rule. JetBlue Airways meanwhile is stricter – it cancels accounts that lack activity for just 12 straight months. Southwest Airlines said it issues free tickets for qualified customers but the tickets expire after 12 months.

For people that have some inactive months or have stopped flying as frequently as before, use your affiliated credit cards for your hotel stays, car rentals and partner merchants so you still earn points and reset your expiration dates.

Redemptions can also reset accounts, so if your program offers newspaper or magazine subscriptions as rewards, you can sacrifice some of your miles for subscriptions just to protect the bigger portion of your account.

From time to time, check the email and email addresses in your airline accounts to see if they are correct. Check also your email spam lists as sometimes important notices are diverted to these lists. See to it also that rewards miles from partner airlines are credited to programs you need to keep current so you can soon get your free or cheap airline ticket.

But for the upcoming holiday, travelers should no longer expect to enjoy these bargains. In fact, if you check and compare the rates last week to this week, you will immediately notice a difference amounting to several hundred dollars.

Not only are flyers shocked over the industry-wide increases, but they are also surprised with the new surcharge that airlines are planning to impose on three of the busiest travel dates during the holidays. According to experts, airlines have decided to take advantage of the huge holiday crowd in order to regain the losses they incurred during the slow months.

In addition, airlines do not want to get caught off guard like last year when there was a huge decline in demand due to the global crisis. It actually forced them to offer really cheap airline tickets just to fill up their flights.

For this year, travelers should brace themselves for the huge difference in airfare as well as available seats. Already, major airlines have announced their decision to reduce the number of flights to maximize profit.

If you are planning on travelling during the holidays, procrastinating will not do you any good. Experts are urging consumers to book and buy their tickets as early as now. With the high demand for seats yet low supply, you can expect airfare to soar even further.

Based on a study conducted by the consulting firm Boyd Group International, it would seem that this scenario will most likely stay until 2016. This is because most airlines are planning to reduce the number of available seats even further. In fact, there will be a 10 percent decline in the number of flights, which roughly translates to about 74 million less flights for 2010 alone.

As a traveler, you have a higher chance of grabbing one of the few available cheap flight tickets for the busy holiday. The key is to be very flexible with your travel plans. You can save as much as 50 percent if you choose not to book a flight on a peak day such as the Wed before Thanksgiving.

AirTran and Southwest, two major airline players, have actually started the bargain offers. The other airlines are trying to compete by matching the said deals. Southwest’s deals will be offered until February while AirTran’s sale will be available until January. Here are some additional details:

Southwest – travel must be made by February 11. The said fares will not be applicable for travels on November 24 to December 1 and December 17 to January 3.

AirTran – travel must be made by January 27. The discount will not be available for flights made on November 25, 28, 29 and 30 and December 18 to January 4.

Although these cheap flights are not available on certain blackout dates, budget-conscious travelers will still be able to enjoy savings if they keep their travel plans flexible.

If you really need to fly out on a certain date, you should try checking out different airlines since their blackout dates vary.

Of course, you should expect certain travel dates to be more expensive than others, with some costing travelers an extra $50 to as much as $200 each way. In addition, you should set aside more money if you will be checking in your baggage or choosing an aisle seat.

Matching deals from other airlines are usually available late in the afternoon so you should wait until then before purchasing your tickets. Do not forget to check aggregate websites for the same flights.

You can actually enjoy more savings by looking at different travel dates on different airlines especially if you consider leaving one day before and/or returning one or two days later.

If you think that the airfare is too high and that you can still find cheap tickets, you should be patient and look for them. Airlines usually have the problem of offering expensive airfare on certain days and launching really great ticket bargains on the other days.

Of course, there are some instances when travelers have no choice but to shell out money for their luggage. If you are among these people, you might want to take advantage of the new offer from United Airlines.

By paying an annual subscription fee of $249, travelers can now check two (2) bags without having to pay any added fee for every flight. If you are traveling with a group that uses the same confirmation code, the “Premier Baggage” program can also be availed of by at most eight of your companions.

Considered to be the third largest carrier in the United States, United was actually the first airline to impose or charge $25 for the second checked bag in order to stay afloat amidst the high fuel prices. A lot of travelers have complained about the additional fee and some even decided to give up traveling altogether even with offers of cheap airplane tickets.

With this new service, the carrier hopes to revive their business with families as well as those people who travel quite regularly.

According to the US Transportation Department, airlines have already collected a whopping $669.6 million from the fees they impose on checked baggage during the 2nd quarter of this year. The figure is three times larger compared to a year ago.

The service cannot be availed of by the members of the airline’s frequent flier program, particularly those who have average accumulated miles of 25,000 per year. These travelers already enjoy the privilege of not having to pay for their first and second bags.

The airline believes that their new program will boost their income as well as promote loyalty among their customers. This is because most travelers would decide to fly with them even if there are cheap airplane tickets available from other airlines because they have already shelled out the $249.

Servicing about 18 counties of Tennessee and Alabama, the airport is now finishing up a beautification program that includes the addition of a gift shop and larger waiting area for the public.

In addition to these, Huntsville is also applying for federal funding that will allow them to attract more commercial travelers. At present, the airport is mainly used by business carriers which have made airfare quite expensive.

If the federal grant is approved, this would open the gates for commercial carriers that offer cheap flight tickets. Obviously, with lower airfare, the airport will attract more fliers and business will certainly improve.

Offers of discounted airfare, both domestically and internationally, have dwindled as the airline industry discovers ways to cut their overhead cost and maximize each flight. For the coming holiday season, several airlines have even decided to add a $10 surcharge, supposedly for fuel expenses.

The said charge was supposed to be applicable for the following dates: November 29, January 2 and 3. But it has been announced just this Monday that the additional fee will be effective in 10 more extra peak travel dates in 2010.

Travel analysts believe that although the extra $10 that travelers have to pay is relatively insignificant, it would still be a burden to consumers since airlines also charge extra for things like checked baggage, seat selection and many others.

And even though travelers are expecting airlines to charge more during the holiday season, it is still surprising that the carriers have decided on additional fees. Experts consider this decision a way for the carriers to take advantage of the high demand and somehow compensate for the losses incurred in the past year.

As for travelers, the only thing to do is to shop and look for cheap flight tickets as early as now in order to avoid the expensive airfare as well as the new surcharge.