USING ITA MATRIX TO FIND BEST FLIGHT DEALS

ITA MATRIX is one of the best "free" tool available to search for the flights with variety of options. This is really useful if you are looking to fly a specific airline carrier, or you want to know which near-by airport has the cheapest available fare to your destination, or you are looking for the specific fare class which would still earn full 100% miles. Below is a sample list of things you could do using ITA MATRIX but by no means is exhaustive:

• Find flight options from a given departure airport to multiple destination airports or vice-versa or both. For example flying from either SJC/SFO to MIA/FLL.
• Flying on a specific airline carrier such as American Airlines or United Airlines.
• Routing through a specific airport to your destination.
• Knowing which "days" would be cheaper to fly by viewing by entire month at a time.
• Finding a fare for a specific fare class which would be useful if you plan to upgrade to next higher cabin using your miles or elite status.
• If you are doing a mileage run finding days or combination of source/destination which would yield lowest price per mile for your trip.
• Using hidden city rule to book your flight for a lower fare compared to destination where you actually want to travel. For more info on "hidden city" check out this article here (by Gary).
• Search for itinerary with specific flight numbers or connection time.
• Search for flights within specific alliance.

Although you can search different combination's as mentioned above the "ITA MATRIX" does not allow you to make a final purchase nor directs you to one. But most of the time knowing the fare exists would enable you to book your ticket either through OTA (Online Travel Agent) website such Expedia, Priceline or Orbitz or book through other meta search engine sites such as Skyscanner or Hipmunk. You can also book the tickets through various airlines own websites as well if you so desire.  Also note that the search does not include any OTA or airline specific coupons or discounts which you could use if available.

Q: How to do a basic search with price per mile enabled?
A: To do the search with price per mile enabled you need to add "?showPricePerMile=true" at the end of webpage link of ITA MATRIX or use this link. Let's do a search for a 2 to 3 day roundtrip from SFO to MIA  on any day in the month of September 2013 for Economy Cabin Class.

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Fig 1 - SFO - MIA search for 2-3 night stay starting 09/01/2013

The result of the above search can be seen below in Fig 2. As you can see the rates are different for different dates as well as it shows if it is for 2 or 3 days turn as well. You can modify the highlighted box in "red" for search for different month or days of trip.

Fig 2 - Search showing entire calender view for Sept 2013

As you can see from Fig. 3, selecting the cheapest trip shown in Fig. 2 loads up variety of flights at different times as well as showing "price per mile" for those trips.

Fig 3 - Search showing different combination of flights and cost per mile

As mentioned this was a simple search with single source and destination. If you want to depart from either of SJC or SFO and your destination could be either of FLL or MIA, you could put that in the search box as shown in Fig. 4

Fig 4 - Departing from SJC/SFO and Arriving in FLL/MIA

For searching flights operated by only "American Airlines", you can enable "advance routing codes" field and add "AA+" or change the "Departing from" field to look like "SFO, SJC::AA+"

Fig 5 - Enable advance routing codes

As you can see there are "tons" of possibility of advance code combinations you can use to make your search more specific, but remember if you put "too many generic" options the ITA MATRIX tool will simply time-out or exit with only "partial" results. So, it is prudent to make your search as specific as possible as well as having broad characteristics of details important to you. Below are some examples of advance routing codes which would be useful. We have assumed the "Departing from" to be SFO, but you have any other airport code for your search. The "two letter" code of each airline can be found here.

• Direct flight on Delta airlines -- SFO :: DL
• Connect in ORD airport -- SFO :: ORD
• Flights on American Airlines with connection in ORD -- SFO :: AA ORD AA
• Search only for flight number AA68 -- SFO :: AA68
• Search for any carrier in "One World" alliance -- SFO :: / alliance oneworld
• Search for specific "Y" class fare -- SFO :: /f bc=Y
• Specify the total duration of the outbound trip to be 6 hours -- SFO :: / maxdur:360

There are many more such codes which are useful to trim down to the flights you are looking for. more information about these can be found on the flyerguide post here. Hope this would be useful for planning your next trip with cash and knowing what were your options before making the purchase.