10-50$ off of your domestic airfare from flight centre

flight centre is a full service travel agency with both an online presence and multiple retail locations. their agents are not super advanced, no more so than what expedia.ca can pull up in terms of deals. in fact, some of their agents can be pretty unhelpful. for example, during the days of HST in BC, they were unaware that if you booked a BC to AB flight as two separate one-way tickets, you'd save the HST on your AB-BC segment. if you booked it as a roundtrip, you were charged the HST on both segments.

but if you do your homework, know what flights you want and how you want to book things, then flight centre may actually present you with some cost savings for your airfares. the warning, however, is that this is only applicable to domestic round trip airfares. flight centre does not charge booking fees for domestic travel. they do, however, charge an additional 65$ for transborder or international itineraries. also, the two discounts i mention below only work for retail locations and not online. finally, if you need to change anything in your itinerary, they will charge you another 50-60$ above and beyond the airline change fees.

1) 10$ savings -- student price card
with the student price card, you will receive a 10$ off domestic round trip airfare coupon. there are higher discounts available for transborder and international flights, however they are both less than the 65$ booking fees. therefore, those discounts will actually cost you money if you were originally planning on booking online anyway. as a UBC resident, you get a library card which looks identical to a student identification card. alternatively, you just need to find someone who is able to book that flight for you.

2) 50$ savings -- taxi game
quite frequently, flight centre advertises a game in taxi cabs. i've only played it in vancouver, but i suspect it's in other major cities as well. in vancouver, the blacktop cab and yellow checker cab brand have in-seat entertainment on the passenger side headrest. flight centre has a world trivia game currently running. you don't have to actually play the game. there is an option to skip the game and enter your e-mail address for a chance to win a sweepstakes. but in even doing that, they will e-mail you a 50$ coupon for any roundtrip domestic airfare.

but wait -- there's more! in the e-mail, there is no unique code. there are no unique links. there are no identifiers. there are no names. you can print off that coupon as many times as you want and present over and over to physical flight center locations. if blogspot had a server that i could link to, i'd scan it and host it right here. all the agent has to do is enter the code FCTAXICONTEST1012. and to top it off ... the coupon had a broad expiration policy. i played the game back in january 2013, and the coupon expires june 30, 2013. if you're a point-seeker, you pay the full amount on your credit card first, and flight centre then writes you a 50$ refund cheque. bonus points for nothing.

go out ... and ride those taxis!