How to use Airfarewatchdog

Airfarewatchdog publishes fares that have been verified by people rather than scraped, including the occasional pricing mistake. Set an alert and wait; do not search it like Google Flights.

What Airfarewatchdog is good at

• Human checking. Fares are confirmed as bookable before they are published, which removes the phantom results that plague automated deal feeds.
• Mistake fares. When an airline files a wrong price, this is one of the places it surfaces. These are rare, short-lived, and occasionally honoured.
• Alerts by home airport, which is the right way to use it: tell it where you live and let it come to you.

What to watch for

You cannot search it for a specific trip on specific dates. It is a feed of what happens to be cheap, so it serves the flexible traveller and nobody else.

A mistake fare can be cancelled by the airline. Do not book non-refundable hotels around one until the ticket is confirmed and some time has passed.

Use it like this

1. Set an alert for every airport within reach of you, not just the closest one.
2. Set a second alert for any destination you actually want, so you catch a route deal as well as a general one.
3. When a fare fires, book it quickly. The good ones last hours.
4. Do not book non-refundable hotels around a suspected mistake fare until the airline has confirmed the ticket.

Verdict

Set up an alert for your home airport and ignore it until it fires. As a search tool for a fixed trip it is useless, which is not a criticism, it is just not what it does.

Common questions

Who owns Airfarewatchdog?

Airfarewatchdog is independently operated.

Does Airfarewatchdog sell tickets directly?

No. It publishes fares and alerts, and you book elsewhere.