Most travelers searching for airfare start and stop with their home airport. Unless they get lucky with a great deal, they may be forced to choose between swallowing a higher price to fly abroad … or frowning and forgetting about it. There's a better way.
The key to cutting down international airfare is using positioning flights: short domestic flights from your hometown airport to a second hub to hop on a cheaper fare. Whether you're searching for international flights on your own, booking a great fare through our Thrifty Traveler Premium service, hopping on an insanely cheap mistake fare, or taking advantage of hard-to-find award space to use your points and miles, this strategy can easily save you hundreds of dollars or more per ticket.
With international travel demand high as ever and domestic flight prices near record lows, this is the key to saving big on your long flight abroad.
What is a Positioning Flight?
Wouldn't it be great if every airport, from the tiny to the enormous, could get cheap fares to fly abroad?
Unfortunately, that's just not the case. While we find cheap flights from 200+ U.S. (and Canadian!) airports big and small, the fact of the matter is that the major hubs get the best deals. And this is where positioning flights come in to help bridge the gap.
Think about the major airports in the U.S. with tons of competition that can drive down airfare prices. Here's a quick look at some of the biggest airports in the country with regular international flights:
- Los Angeles (LAX)
- San Francisco (SFO)
- Seattle (SEA)
- Chicago-O'Hare (ORD)
- Dallas-Fort Worth (DFW)
- Houston-Intercontinental (IAH)
- Boston (BOS)
- New York City (JFK)
- Newark (EWR)
- Washington, D.C.-Dulles (IAD)
- Atlanta (ATL)
- Miami (MIA)
Which of these major international hubs can you cheaply fly to? Airlines might charge you an arm and a leg if you start your search from your home airport to London-Heathrow (LHR), Sydney (SYD), Tokyo-Haneda (HND), or wherever you're heading abroad.
But if you separately book a cheap flight to get to, say, Los Angeles (LAX) or New York City (JFK), you can likely save hundreds on that flight overseas. Better yet, use points and miles to book that positioning flight for nearly free – or book both using points and miles.
Let's look at an example.
The Power of Positioning Flights in Action
International travel demand is sky-high, and we've been seeing a steady stream of cheap flights to Europe, the Caribbean, and even Oceania lately, like these amazing roundtrip fares to Europe that we sent a few months back to Thrifty Traveler Premium subscribers. This flight deal even included dates in August, the peak summer travel season.
But sadly, the whole nation didn't get the flight deal love. So even on the same dates you can catch a dirt-cheap ride on a nonstop flight from places like Boston (BOS) to Copenhagen (CPH) during the peak summer travel season…
… here's what you'd see flying from even a fairly big airport like Minneapolis-St. Paul (MSP).
Over double the price for a weeklong trip to Europe? No thanks.
The sub-$500 roundtrip flights to Europe were flying Scandinavian Airlines, which only flies to a handful of cities in the U.S. – mostly on the East Coast. But getting to Boston from Minneapolis is generally quite cheap and easy, so let's try out a positioning flight.
Start with the long-haul flight to Copenhagen. We can leave Boston at about 6:05 p.m. for a grand total of $356 roundtrip. It's scheduled to land back in the U.S. at 4 p.m. the following week.
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Keep those dates and times in mind for your positioning flight as you fire up Google Flights. In this case, we're looking at a $153 fare to get to Boston on Sun Country – though you might be able to find an even better deal by waiting for prices to drop or setting a Google Flights price alert.
The key is making sure all the times and dates line up to make this one-stop flight to Cophenhagen and back work. Add those separate flights up, and you've got a round-trip ticket to Copenhagen for $509 – nearly $300 cheaper than the simple search you started with! Plus, you could drop the final price even lower by using points and miles to book the positioning flight to Boston – or booking the Copenhagen flight using Chase Ultimate Rewards points through the Chase Travel℠ portal.
This is just one example, but it's a powerful method that can pay off on almost any big international flight.
Positioning Flights & Points & Miles Deals
When you're trying to use your points and miles, positioning flights can be absolutely essential – especially if you're trying to fly in lie-flat business class. Let's look at another example.
Flying Iberia business class to Madrid (MAD) for as low as just 34,000 miles each way is one of the best deals in the world of points and miles. But you won't find that outstanding deal from every airport: You'll need to depart from select cities like New York City (JFK), Boston (BOS), Washington, D.C.-Dulles (IAD), or Chicago-O'Hare (ORD).
Oh, and you'll need to find the award space to actually book those lie-flat seats. We just sent Thrifty Traveler Premium members an award alert for some solid availability next year, so that part is covered.
Get the next amazing award alert with Thrifty Traveler Premium!
But if you were starting from Minneapolis-St. Paul (MSP), Fargo (FAR), or even a massive airport like Atlanta (ATL), your searches with Iberia would likely come up empty-handed.
Yet again, a positioning flight is crucial. Getting from Minneapolis over to Chicago won't cost you much at all.
A quick, $133 flight is all you need in order to hop on this incredible deal, kicking off a trip to Spain in lie-flat seats that typically cost $3,000 or more.
If that doesn't show the power of positioning flights, I don't know what will.
The Risks with Positioning Flights: Delays & Cancellations
We'll be upfront here: There is some risk to keep in mind with positioning flights. But that risk can easily be outweighed by these substantial savings.
One-stop journeys booked together (as part of one reservation) protect you if the first leg is delayed or canceled. If your first flight lands too late to catch the second segment, the airline will put you on the next available flight.
But that's not the case if you book a positioning flight separately. Some airlines will help you out when things go wrong … but you can't count on it.
So there's one critical thing to keep in mind: Now more than ever, give yourself plenty of time between flights. With the mass delays and cancellations we've seen over the last few years, there's more uncertainty with booking positioning flights like this.
Read more: How to Survive (or Avoid) Flight Delays & Cancellations
Flight times are almost guaranteed to change from what you initially booked, so you'll need to monitor your reservations to make sure your airlines don't throw a wrench in your plans. And a last-minute delay or cancellation could ruin a trip if it means you miss your connection.
Only you can decide what you're comfortable with, but it's probably safest to give yourself at least three to four hours of connection time between when your positioning flight lands and when that longer flight takes off – and even more on the way back home to the U.S., as you'll have to clear customs and immigration, then re-clear security, too.
You might even want to consider flying in a day early, just to be sure you don't miss that big flight abroad. If your outbound flight departs early or your return flight lands light, an extra overnight might be essential.
There are a few other things to keep in mind for your positioning flight:
- When possible, it's worth trying to book your positioning flight on the same airline as the international journey. Some carriers can link these flights. While that won't protect you as if they were booked as one trip, it will give the airline a heads-up if you're in danger of missing your connection. This can also help with baggage.
- It's best to travel with only a carry-on bag. If things go wrong (or even if they don't), you don't want to have to worry about collecting your baggage, rechecking it, and re-clearing security. Read our tips to pack in a carry-on bag!
- Consider paying for your trip with a credit card that has trip delay and cancellation coverage like the *chase sapphire preferred*, the *chase sapphire reserve*, or the *venture x*. While it won't ensure you get on the next flight if your positioning flight is delayed, it can help cover some of the costs if things go wrong.
Only you can decide whether these risks are worth it. To us, the savings of pairing a positioning flight with a great international flight deal can easily outweigh them.
Bottom Line
Positioning flights make any flight deal accessible from anywhere in the U.S. Don't let another incredible flight deal pass you by because it's not departing from your home city.