Well I know one thing, airline tickets are cheaper in the US than they are in Canada!!

It all depends on which airline, where you are traveling. If you are going to a large city with multiple airports, you might get a deal. If you are going to a more remote area, not so much. The no frills airlines might sell cheap tickets but, they nickel and dime you for everything else. Sometimes it's cheaper to pay a little more upfront and have everything included.

It depends where you are traveling, which airline you use, and if you are skilled at working their price "system". We almost always fly Southwest, partly because you can cancel and rebook without a fee penalty, and partly because they don't do all of those additional fee gotchas. My husband will keep close watch on sales or price drops after booking, and rebook the tickets any time we can get a better deal. Sometimes it is a few changes, sometimes he will have done 4-5 over a period of months. By the time we board, it is usually have a very good rate, unless it was a last-minute type of booking.

Spirit airlines is awful with "extra" charges. I just bought a round trip ticket yesterday from Atlanta to Washington D.C. and it cost $350 on Southwest. I think that's high as it's not cross country. I am about to purchase a round trip ticket from Atlanta to New Orleans and I am hoping to spend no more than $250.

Often, not always, prices are based on the experiences of previous days of the week. Many times, a Saturday departure is much less than a Friday or Monday flight.

The add-ons can hurt the purse. For instance, Southwest will allow you free baggage (up to a point), so one needs to take into account their pricing with that in mind. I just booked an Air Canada Rouge flight and had to pay a bunch extra for the leg room that is needed for the missus.

Funny side story. I have a friend who is budget conscious. They travel to see friends in Europe quite often. With all the baggage restrictions, they decided to just do carry on. (They figured they could do laundry at their friend's house.)

Well, the dimensions changed and their carry-ons did not qualify. They had to check them! They were so angry.

They seem far higher to me than they were 13-15 years ago. I now pay for anything I can, using my Delta Skymiles AmEx card so I can build up FF miles.

Everyone keeps telling me about all the great airline deals they're getting. I have a friend flying out of LA to Dublin for $700 RT. The guy that installed my granite said he's getting coast to coast for $89.

I long ago gave up on trying to "understand" the system and to try to bring to bear proper timing for buying tickets. Articles will suggest the best time to buy is early Sunday morning - No, make that Tuesday afternoon. No, pick a Saturday evening. Wait, do it at least 3 months in advance.

Ticket prices go up and down, airlines use demand pricing (checking on a given flight too often can raise the price), and other than at obvious holiday times - Spring Break, Thankgsgiving or Christmas - I think it's a crap shoot. If you're flexible, set a budget and try to buy within it. If you're not, do your best and don't obsess over it.

Personally, I avoid Southwest unless there absolutely, positively isn't a choice. Southwest has too much of a tendency to run late and cancel flights, and for these reasons and others, using them too often means uncomfortable experiences on the planes and in their terminals.

When trying to do carry-on only travel, you need to be sure to check what the regulations are for the specific airline. They can vary quite a bit.

Also, the new trend is for restricting overhead bins to first and business classes only. On some routes/planes/carriers, coach passengers will be limited to a single hand luggage that must be small enough to be stowed under the seat.

Yes, flights between European cities are inexpensive (well, some of them - depending on departure or destination airport, time of year, time of day, etc.), but they're frequently on the no-frills airlines as mentioned above.

We subscribe to a couple of cheap flight notification services, which is why we're going to London next month. Got an email that r/t flights from most US airports to London were under $500. So I checked - they were - we bought - we're going. Delta out, Virgin Atlantic back. Virgin Atlantic is an amazing airline, and one of my top-two favorite for international flights. The other is Lufthansa.

That same cheap flight notification service also got us a great deal to Paris in November (less than $600 R/T) on Delta and Air France. When international flights are that cheap, we just up-and-go. Paris will be a bit more expensive because we'll have to pay for hotel rooms. (We have a pied-a-terre in London.)

I also only take carry-on luggage for trips lasting up to two weeks. I'm an expert packer. lol

My last two flights happened to be on smaller connector jets, maybe 50 people. I had a carry on bag but they wanted to put it down below. No extra charge and you hand it to them on the jetway and they give it right back when you land. I loved that. A lot less people and and easy way to handle the luggage. Sweet!!

Apparently you can fly cheaper from Europe to the U.S. than the other way around too. One of my exchange student's mom is here now and she came over and paid about $700 from Denmark. (two-way ticket). I paid over $1700 to go to Spain last year for one ticket!

Kathsgardn - that's definitely true. We haven't bought our tickets for our September trip yet, and are looking at possibly buying our tickets while we're in the UK - a roundtrip from London to our nearby airport (for our return to the States) is pretty cheap, and we'd just "burn" the return ticket - possibly do the same for our flight over.