Do cheap flights exist?
On her blog called the Travel Gal, Cindy Carlsson of St. Paul shares stories and photos from trips to Botswana, Ecuador, Cambodia and Thailand, but it was the expense of a potential trip to Berlin this summer that finally put the brakes on her wanderlust. “We looked at the cost of the air tickets and the exchange rate and decided we couldn’t do it,” she said. Fuel surcharges and increasing demand have steadily pushed the cost of tickets up. Travelocity estimates that prices rose on average by 7 percent last year; on some flights, the rise was much higher than that. Ticket price is only one measure of the increased cost of flying; passengers also paid extra for their box lunches, their exit row and aisle seats, and on United at least, their second checked bags. There are ways to fight back. Carlsson is a good case in point. After giving up on Berlin, she patiently monitored airfares. When Northwest, promoting its direct flights to Paris, offered a $2,100 deal on a weeklong hotel-air pac
