Book Now, Upgrade Later with Alerts
00:00:00.000 | This next tip is one I use all the time.
00:00:02.200 | And it's that I try to book flights that will work,
00:00:05.080 | but maybe they're not ideal.
00:00:06.840 | And then I set up alerts to try to find the flights
00:00:09.200 | I really want.
00:00:10.120 | And that gives me the comfort of knowing
00:00:12.320 | that the trip is booked.
00:00:13.280 | We don't have to wait until seven days before departure
00:00:16.160 | to know that we're actually going on this trip.
00:00:19.000 | So maybe you really want to fly business class,
00:00:21.520 | but you end up booking premium economy one way.
00:00:24.120 | Maybe you really want direct flights,
00:00:25.720 | but you end up booking a flight to change planes
00:00:27.960 | in another city because that will work
00:00:30.040 | even if it's not ideal.
00:00:31.080 | Maybe you really want to stay till Sunday,
00:00:33.400 | but you decide that you book a flight coming back Saturday
00:00:35.760 | because you found it.
00:00:36.560 | We do this all the time.
00:00:38.120 | And then most of these award search tools
00:00:40.720 | have the ability to set up alerts.
00:00:42.440 | To take my previous example,
00:00:43.960 | we booked two flights to Japan
00:00:45.680 | where me and one of my daughters is on one,
00:00:47.760 | my wife and the other daughters on the other,
00:00:49.480 | but we have 11 months until we're leaving.
00:00:52.440 | So I went in and put alerts on both of those flights.
00:00:55.520 | So if two seats open up on either of those flights,
00:00:57.960 | or if four seats open up on any other flight that day,
00:01:01.640 | we'll be able to easily cancel or change our flights
00:01:05.040 | so that we're all on the same flight.