Heathrow Airport
Self-proclaimed aviation geek George Hobica has been tracking the best deals for nearly a decade at the site he founded, Airfarewatchdog.com. Along the way, he's honed his packing strategy to a sharply measured science, flown supersonic more than once, and figured out the best way to make any flight more comfortable.
How Airfarewatchdog.com began
Back then, there were so many more airlines and so many fares that would change every day. It was just the wild west: There were so many airlines and they were all losing money and they were all retaliating against each other. So we picked up on this—a lot of people didn't even know about this because the sales only lasted for a day—and we needed to get this information out.
As consolidation progressed and airlines went out of business, these unadvertised fare wars became less prevalent. But it still happens and that's still the impetus of the site, to let people know about unadvertised sales and to let people know about these childish games that airlines play.
How the site is different from other airfare finders
We use real people to go through a list of routes—Did this go up or down? Is this lower than average? Is this good for travel every day of the week?—to determine what's a really, really good deal, and then we put it up on the site. We apply human intelligence to the way we select the fares—and very importantly we have Southwest Airlines, which you can only get if you use manual search.
The good old days of airfare finding
It used to be that there were so many sales it was hysterical. Today I only found a handful. And I feel sorry for people who have come to the game late: There's very little money in airfare now. I think Google Flights is probably the gorilla in the room. They have a lot of money and they're probably going to improve the whole of airfare search.
On recapturing the lost glamour of air travel
There are two ways. One is to get status. Christopher Elliott recently had a blog post saying that loyalty is ridiculous. Well, I've got news for you: If you fly a lot on one airline and are very loyal, eventually you get a lot of miles. You get status and you get upgraded for free. When you're sitting in first class or business class, it's not that bad.
The other way is, if you do have miles, just use them to upgrade to business class. Find the cheapest fare you can find and upgrade. Unfortunately, to enjoy flying you just have to fly in business or first. [Laughs] Or fly on JetBlue! If first and business were no longer an option for me, I'd just fly where JetBlue flies. It's my favorite domestic airline by far.
On the #carryonshame trend
I think it's up to the airlines to enforce the rules—which they're doing. It's not up to journalists to shame people. That becomes kind of like People of Walmart. I understand why people try to bring all their worldly goods onto a plane. They don't want stuff to get lost or stolen.
On packing light
I've been experimenting with how little I can bring on a trip no matter how long the trip is. In fact, I'm soon going to New York for three days then Bangkok for about ten days then I'm coming back and immediately going to Hawaii for about a week. I'm planning on bringing a shoulder bag. People can pack light; they just have to think about it.
On finding the best airfare bargains
People complain about airfares going up, up, up, and they have. But there are still a lot of great bargains out there. I don't care which airfare alerts you sign up for—of course, I do—but sign up for at least a couple. And when you see a good deal, don't sit on your thumbs. Put it on a 24-hour hold while you decide if you really want to go. One of the best things that the DOT has done is that hold. People so often say, "I might book that!" and then it's gone. Airfare alerts really are the best way because there is no magic day to find a good airfare.
As told to Paul Brady.