Finding First/Business Class Flights
Booking Sites
Lets face it, the flights are the worst part of any vacation. Especially if you have a long flight. Europe is 9+ hours, Vietnam is 20+ hours, Africa we don’t even want to talk about. Getting premium seats, whether that is economy plus, business or first can make a huge difference in the quality of the vacation. The problem is, it is very difficult to get good prices on those seats.
It’s difficult for me to get on a flight that isn’t one of the three so I have done some research on this one. I will include some articles below on the best way to get deals on these flights but in the end, sometimes you just have to do the searches so I have added links to some of my favorite sites to search on.
Below are links to some of our favorite sites for booking first class flights.
What We Like: I love all of the filtering options. It drastically cuts down the search time when looking for flights and they have a filter for just about everything. They also have a very unique feature I almost missed. They combine the departing and returning flights but if you like just one, you can check on that and it will show you other options with that flight. Great idea.
What We Don’t: I had high hopes for this site when I got to their home page. They claimed to have reviews for airlines, a fly score and other useful information that may come in handy when the flights are typically so close to the same price but once getting in there, never did see a fly score and the reviews were just in stars. No real information.
One of the oldest travel sites but newest to the reservation business even though they are just scanning the other sites and not actually booking.
Search Type: Scanner site - they search other sites and direct you to the one you want to book on.
What they book? Flights, Hotels, Cars, and Package Deals
One of the first couple reservation sites out there. You can book anything on this site from air, cars, hotels, packages, cruises and more.
What they book? Hotels, flights, cars, vacation packages, and excursions.
What We Like: One of the two oldest travel websites out there and if you have ever booked travel on line, you most likely have used them before whether you know it or not. Their reservation system is used by a lot of the other travel sites and just re-branded. There are a few things here we really like though. First is it’s easy to use. Second, we absolutely love that once you choose a flight you get the option of choosing economy, economy plus, business or first. It also tells you right up front for each one what is included and what is extra.
What We Don’t: There really isn’t anything we don’t like about this site.
Kayak was the leader in scanning sites for a long time. Now they are pretty similar to others on this list.
Type of Search: Scanner - they search other travel sites and send you there to book.
What they book? Flights, Hotels, Cars, and Package Deals
What We Like: Great site that is easy to use. The filter buttons at the top for “cheapest”, “best” and “quickest” are a great way to find the best flight for you depending on your own priorities. There are a ton of filtering options on the side to quickly reduce down your options. Lastly, we love that once you find the flight, it takes you directly to the other site for that specific flight, you don’t have to search again once you get there. We would always prefer to book directly with the airlines and Kayak allows us to easily search but still book direct in the end.
What We Don’t: When you request a round trip flight the results are lumped together as a whole trip. So if you like the departing flight but not the returned flight, you have to keep scrolling through the list until you find the combination you like. I prefer just picking the departing flight and then letting me choose the return flight. Less important, but still kind of annoying is all of the ads. I get they need to make money but it is so distracting, especially when compared to other scanners like Google flights.
Although they started out as a bidding site for flights, they have transitioned over to a standard booking site.
Search Type: Booking site.
What they book? Flights, hotels, activities, packages.
What We Like: It’s a pretty easy search engine. We do really like how you can see the price difference and upgrade your seat to economy plus, preferred or exit row seats. One nice feature they do have that most others don’t is being able to pay monthly for your flight. Just be forewarned, when you choose this you are applying for a credit line from a third party and you will pay extra for it.
What We Don’t: There are only a few filters to reduce down your options and they don’t provide any visible view of their extra charges. We really, really don’t like that they charge you extra if you want to reserve a window or isle seat when you wouldn’t have to pay that if you booked direct.
Not only are they the original Online website, but they are also Sabre, the original reservation system long before windows was even a dollar sign in Bill Gates eye.
Search Type: Booking site.
What they book? Flights, Hotels, Cars, and Package Deals
What We Like: Similar to a lot of other sites we have looked at, this booking site offers a basic search function in a minimalist design. Easy to use, lots of flight options, allows you to choose the departing and returning flights separately and doesn’t have their own fees.
What We Don’t: The filtering options aren’t as robust as most sites which seems odd considering half those sites are owned by Travelocity, but they may be compromising filters for simplicity. Other than that, no complaints.
Search Type: Scanner - search on their site and they direct you to a different site to book.
What they book? Flights, Hotels, Cars
What We Like: It’s a simple site that is easy to use and seamlessly directs you to the booking site ready to book. No booking fees because they direct you to the airlines site.
What We Don’t: As with some other sites, they group the flights together instead of letting you choose the departing and returning flight separate. There aren’t a lot of filter options so you have to scroll through more than should be necessary. There are a lot of ads on the site though, (half the page), so if that bugs you this isn’t the site for you.
What We Like: Super easy site and lots of filtering options, including our favorite, length of layover time.
What We Don’t: There is up to $35.00 service fee for each ticket. It’s not disclosed until the final push of the button. I get it because airlines don’t pay commissions but at the same time, just go to the airline and book it yourself directly for the same price. As great as their search functionality is, having the lowest price be on a different days than you asked for seems deceptive.
Type of Search: Reservation site. Book directly on this site.
What they book? Flights Only
What We Like: Honestly, not much. It’s a scanner site from 10 years ago. The only advantage is that it transfers the basic flight information into the other sites for you.
What We Don’t: Even though it transfers your basic information to each site, it’s just the basic information and you have to go through them one by one. It really isn’t saving much time than just going into them individually.
Type of Search: This site is a scanner. It searches other sites to find the best price. It redirects you to the other sites to book.
About this site: This is a simple scanner site. Input your information one time, then choose the search sites you want to search.
What they book? Flights, Hotels, Cars, and Package Deals
What We Like: This is one of our go to sites for searching flights. Why? It’s clean and simple to use, Right off the bat you will notice a big difference when you choose a date that you are able to see the lowest price on each date allowing you to quickly see the best days to fly. Once you settle on a date, we love that it put the 3 best flights at the top which is ranked by a combination of price, convenience, layovers and more. We also like that you can set up a price alert if you are just shopping and be notified if the price goes up or down. One final thing we really like is at the very end and probably easy to miss. It’s the scale of where the price is now compared to on average.
What We Don’t: We have no complaints because Google Flights does what it is supposed to do.
Google Flights its pretty simple at its core. It does what you would expect from Google Flights. It searches for all of the flights available and lets you set up alerts to notify you of prices changes, good or bad.
Type of Search: Scanner - they search the airlines and transfer you to their site to book.
What they book? Flights
What We Like: If your travel plans are flexible, you will find incredible deals on this site. They also give you very specific details on where to go and what to punch in to get this price. One of the smartest things they have done though is to utilize Facebook and Twitter so that you are notified as soon as they find out about the deal.
What We Don’t: If you are looking for a specific departure and arrival as well as date and possibly times for flights, this isn't the site for you. Also, I wish they would just put links to the flights instead of giving directions for finding them.
Unlike other sites, on Airfare Watchdog you tell it where you are starting from, or where you want to end up and it will give great deals from or to there. It's not going to show every flight, it will only list it if it's a good deal. If you find a deal you like, you click on it to get complete direction on finding and booking it.
What they book? Flights Only
Premium economy is sometimes a lot and sometimes only a little more than economy. At what point is it worth it? Is it different by airline? Is it different on domestic compare to international? We answer all of your questions here.
What is the best and cheapest way to get business and first class tickets. From tips, strategy, booking sites and so much more, we explore all of your options here.
If this was a Master Class in How to Book Business and First Class Flights, your first lesson would be this… Airlines DO NOT sell first class seats to companies or brokers and say “you can’t tell anyone who they will be flying with or what the prices are unless they give you their name and email address”. They don’t care. They may say you can’t “advertise” that price, but they don’t say you need to get an email or phone number before giving out the price. Therefore, first lesson truly is, if they are saying they can’t give you their price or the airlines or flight details unless you give them your private info, move on. Otherwise, be prepared to be hounded until you’re ready to change your number. If they don’t want to give you a price without you giving up your personal information, that’s not a good sign.