Around the year 2000, most airlines ran regular email campaigns to tell travelers about the latest airfare sales. Each airline claimed its own day of the week to spit out an eagerly awaited message containing the latest deals, and vacationers jumped on those "webfares" (a truly Y2K kind of travel term if there ever was one) to save cash.
Then, in the 2010s, Twitter took over the duties for sharing the latest flight deals at any hour of the day. In the early years of that social media site, most of the airlines maintained accounts where they'd pump out word of their current discounts. In time, though, Twitter's usefulness faded, too.
Now it's the 2020s, and the airlines have backed away from using both of those platforms to promote sales. Instead, the biggest heralds of the latest cheap airfare finds are third-party sites that sell those seats for commission, and they're using social media posts to blast everyone with word of new discoveries.
Bluesky, one of the newest social media sites to catch fire, is already home to several airfare deal finders worth following.
Oh, and Frommer's is on Bluesky, too. We're at @frommers.com. (So easy to remember!)
In alphabetical order:
Airglitch: @airglitch.bsky.social
Sample post: "✈️ Chicago to Tokyo one-way: $983 💡 Same flight with a spare multicity: $484 🎉 Save $499 (51% off) 🛫 Air Canada · Economy · 1 stop"
Airglitch specializes in finding airfares that are cheap because their routings are too unique or time-consuming for most passengers. The service might find a cheaper way to get to your desired destination by adding in a second stop that unlocks a crazy low price for the whole trip. Or Airglitch could assemble a cheap round-trip price by cobbling together two one-ways you might not have found on your own.
A few of the routings might require you to bail on a ticket at a layover point, which the airlines hate and will preclude you from checking baggage, so not every flight plan from Airglitch is without risk. But Airglitch's discoveries are worth a look, and you'll book tickets directly with the airlines themselves.
Escape Flights
Sample post, which links to the Escape Flights website for more information: "Cheap Flights: Portland to Paris $430-$458 r/t [October-December] (No Christmas) - Icelandair"
Escape Flights doesn't charge a fee. Clicking a deal on the website (usually arranged by departure date) brings you to an online travel seller (not the airlines themselves) for booking. In many cases, flight booking is handed over to Skyscanner, an aggregator that has our approval as one of the better airfare search engines out there.
Escape Flights covers more than a dozen cities/airport regions, but not every region has its own Bluesky feed. These airports and regions are included: ATL (@atl.escape.flights), AUS (@escapeatx.com), BUR (listed with @lax.escape.flights), ORD/MDW (@chi.escape.flights), DEN (@den.escape.flights), DFW (@cheapdfw.com), IAH/HOU (@escapehouston.com), LAX (@lax.escape.flights), LGB (listed with @lax.escape.flights), MKE (listed under @chi.escape.flights), NYC (including Newark: @escape.flights), ONT (listed with @lax.escape.flights), PDX (@pdx.escape.flights), PHX (@phx.escape.fights), SAT (listed with @escapeatx.com), SEA (@sea.escape.flights), and SNA (listed with @lax.escape.flights).
Escape Flights also posts to Instagram and Facebook, but less often. The site's leaders advise that the fastest way to receive word of new deals is to join its free Telegram channel.
The Flight Deal: @theflightdeal.bsky.social
Sample post, which leads to a fuller explanation at The Flight Deal website: "American: Philadelphia - Athens, Greece. $523 (Basic Economy) / $723 (Regular Economy). Roundtrip, including all Taxes"
The Flight Deal shares some airfares it finds on Bluesky for free, but to get word of airfare discounts before they hit social media (so you'll have a better chance of grabbing them yourself), you can subscribe to the Real Time Newsletter for $20 a year.
For even deeper discounts, The Flight Deal wants you to sign up for its premium newsletter, the best version of which costs $80 a year for alerts from one of six geographic regions in the U.S.