How to Book Cheap BUSINESS CLASS TICKETS without Points!

have you ever wondered if there is a travel hack for finding cheap or lowcost business class seats on a long haul flight after all not only do you get upscale beverages gourmet food extra comfy pillows and blankets an entry into the lounge at the airport but most importantly you get lay flat seats on those long overnight flights well today we're going to tell you how we snag these seats on occasion without using points now it isn't an IAL hack but it's a strategy that we use and let us tell you it is worth the effort we're J Bev and we are the retirement Travelers if you're just joining us we are full-time Travelers who are on the adventure of Our Lives traveling around the world this video is part of a big series we're doing called travel school we wanted to put together a free course where we could teach and share our experience of World Travel our passion is sharing in our knowledge and we wanted to do it for free we anticipate having 20 or 30 lessons and over the next few months we'll be posting them all on our website so you can go there and binge watch it's at retirement travelers.com and if you're wondering where we are as we travel the world we update our location on Instagram so follow us there we're currently in India you now we're doing a lot of daily story so you can see what we're up to in real time today we wanted to share a short video and let you know our method for finding bargain business flight tickets we thought you might like to hear why we do it and how we do it a few years ago before I retired I was traveling on a domestic flight now the company that I work for allowed for business class seats on overseas flights but not on domestic on this occasion I had been in Washington state and took the red eye home because it was domestic I was in economy now in order to sleep I rested rested my knees up against the back of the seat Well to make a long story short I developed a blood clot of my leg I didn't realize it till it broke away and exploded in my lungs about a week later after a trip to the ER uh I learned that I had a multiple pulmonary embolisms uh the ER doctor told me that I was really lucky to be alive I've since learned that I have a blood clotting disorder that makes me five times more susceptible to blood clots obviously this is a big concern for us when we fly John is on a blood thinner but we wanted to be proactive and not book uncomfortable seats for him when we fly longer than six or seven hours sitting up all night is a worry for us so there's that now a few years ago when we started traveling full-time we were in Costa Rica we had problems with our itinerary and we were looking for a place to spend a couple of weeks we knew the World Expo was taking place in Dubai and it was going to be ending soon we started looking for a flight well since it was a very very long way I suggested that why not look for a business class tickets see how much they cost well I did a quick search and realized that if we flew back to Panama City Panama we could take a KLM flight round trip to Dubai for $2500 each now when John had traveled to Dubai on Business from The us we knew tickets were about $10 to $15,000 so we were shocked at that price obviously we booked them that's right now when we reached Panama City we flew to Amsterdam overnight and had a long layover we then took another layover in Paris before flying again overnight to Dubai two overnight flights laying down flat with beautiful lounges and great food it started our trip off right it was Bev's first time in business class and and guess what she loved it I did it was addictive very addictive so we started researching to see where we could find a cheap business class ticket we soon discovered that there the carriers that offer great tickets are few and far between when flying from the US but I was determined so determined that we pretty much build our two trips a year around business class ticket Bargains there are several things we do to find them but the first is figuring out which carriers have the good deals now the main traditional us carrier are the hardest to NAB because let's face it the business traveler in the US books these tickets out of need not necessarily looking for a great deal there are a lot of these guys and gals out there and there's certainly a markup on their seats so what to do first like we said earlier we plan our trip six months to one year in advance after we decide what region we want to travel to we start looking for tickets now we usually book these within when they first become available so that's our first strategy book as early as possible now we don't really care at this point where in the region we start because we plan to build a trip around it so whether we start in Manila or Bangkok that's not our concern at this point we have found that the best prices occur on Tuesdays Wednesdays and sometimes Saturdays our second strategy is don't limit yourself to the closest airport last year when we were searching for our tickets to India we saw a great bargain again on KLM from Miami it was almost as cheap as the Panama City tickets but for some reason we weren't ready to book and when we went back to get them the sale had ended thankfully we still found a bargain out of dullas in Washington DC the other part of the strategy is to consider airports outside the US most people never think to look in Central America or Colombia when we flew to Auckland New Zealand last year we looked at tickets from Orlando the tickets were 10 to 12 $1,000 for business class and these were some of the cheapest ones we could find so with my new addiction to business class I started searching high and low I went back to Panama City and with no luck decided to search in Colombia we love Colombia and know it's a short flight from the US well bingo I found a ticket we ended up taking a cheap flight to Bogota and we had a lovely layover for a few days and then we boarded a LAM Airlines which stopped in Santiago Chile before flying onto Auckland our point is flying to Colombia was relatively inexpensive and we were able to visit a city we had never seen sleep on our long flight to Auckland and arrive ready to go you know if we would have tried to book the whole business class from or you know Orlando to Auckland going through Bogota there would have been very little savings but starting the business class ticket in bogat offered us a huge bargain you know we think this is a hidden route to Australia and New Zealand so the question became for us what airlines and what airports are conducive to Bargains like these now we've learned that flying to Dublin is a good European destination that offers bargain tickets we were able to NAB one of these on WestJet out of Calgary last year the other airline that we found was Saadia air now last year when we were planning for Asia we happened up on a route back home Manila to Washington Washton DC this ticket was only about $1600 we flew from Manila to Jetta Saudi Arabia overnight with a long layover in one of the best lounges we had ever seen before another 13-hour flight to DC Saudia air is a great carrier sometimes when you book within they offer a hotel deal so you can have a layover in Jetta before boarding the next day we you can visit the city as a bonus sometimes you get a few days here so if Saudi Arabia is on your list it's a good way to get a peak into Jetta so from our experience these are some of the routes that work for us KLM from Panama to Amsterdam or Dubai you know WestJet from Calgary Canada to Dublin Ireland Saia air from DC to Manila or Bangkok and LAM Airlines from bogot Columbia to Auckland New Zealand or Sydney Australia we're sure that there are other opportunities we're hearing that cutter Airline is looking to be competitive between Europe and Asia but we haven't booked with them yet if you know of a bargain route like these leave a comment below we'd love to check it out and I'm sure others would too one of our biggest tips when planning a trip is to think outside the box now look at other cities and build your itinerary from there now we'll give you an example say you want to visit Singapore you know every Airline seems to Mark these flights up because Singapore is a banking and business Hub in Asia and everything is pretty expensive there you know you could fly to Bangkok instead on Saudia air and just take a short cheap flight down to Singapore and you will save thousands on a business class ticket you might even find one in koala lur Malaysia you know if you look there it's just a hop skip and a jump you know from there to Singapore or from Bangkok as retirees we have all the time in the world to add in a layover remember a business class ticket gets you into a lounge some times a premium Lounge so kick back read a book eat the food sometimes we take showers and they will supply you with everything you need towels shampoos slippers robes everything it is really nice yes now we have one disclaimer and that is finding business class tickets is a long tedious process so don't get frustrated you know for us it's it's a game or a puzzle okay so we like to keep at it until we figure it out smaller airports are usually not you know the the place to find these kind of Bargains you know when I worked our home was always located near one of these small airports and we never found bargain so you you have to be willing to take a short flight to a big Hub or explore like we said earlier explore outside the US we are often asked what search engine we use for flights now we usually start with Google search but this is just to identify carriers we never book there or on any other third-party site because Airlines usually offer a better deal in our experience now we want to book with the airline if we are given an opportunity now if there is a great deal that we can't pass up on a third-party booking site we might book there but for the most part we really like booking with an airline because if there's a flight disruption or there is a problem we know who to contact in the past we've tried to book through our through our credit card and we made some mistakes early on and trying to straighten these out was a hassle so we don't always recommend doing that if you can book with the airline we say you should start there recently several people have reached out to us and suggested we use a fee for service booking site like fairdrop now we've not done this yet but we're we're open to it in the future we are always looking for bargain so you know let us know in the comments if you've tried that or any other site and had good success with it another thought is that we recently did a video on repositioning cruises now last year we bought the business class one-way flight to Dublin but then we use a repositioning cruise to get us back home so think about using these when building a trip to now there's another hack that we've learned about that we haven't tried using Airline points on Chase and American Express now what people do is they book a flex ticket on an airline that allows them to upgrade to business class with points that they've transferred from their credit card to the airline now this upgrade is cheaper than paying the full price so check it out for us we feel that we get a much greater value by using our points for the high hack we explained in this video so check it out so that's our method think outside the box search for flights from Central or South America or even Canada be flexible with destination cities and build an itinerary starting with these bargain stay tuned for our next video how we plan our trips and if you missed the first two videos go back to our website and watch there we'll see you next week be sure to hit subscribe and follow along on our retirement Journey around the world

Channel: Retirement Travelers

Views: 138,778

Keywords: business class, business class tickets, business class flight, how to find cheap flights, business class bargains, how to get business class tickets, how to find cheap business class tickets, business class hacks, how to find cheap business class tickets without points, how to book cheap business class tickets, how to find the cheapest flights, cheap business class, how to find business class flights, retirement travelers, business class for less, business class deals for less

Id: LSh8akYommk

Length: 12min 42sec (762 seconds)

Published: Sat Jan 27 2024