Photo: Marek Ślusarczyk / CC BY 3.0
How to search properly: getting a real answer out of Kaviqa
A flight search returns exactly what you asked for, which is the problem. Ask for one airport on one exact date and you get one answer. These are the controls that widen the question without turning it into noise.
Kaviqa3 min read
Start wider than feels natural
The single most common mistake is searching the trip you already decided on. One origin, one destination, one exact date, and the result confirms what you assumed. A search is only useful if it can surprise you, and that requires giving it room.
Two controls do most of the widening, and none of them cost you anything if the tight answer turns out to be best anyway.
The two controls that matter
- Compare nearby airports. Choose a city or airport in From and To. If several airports work for your trip, search each pair separately and compare the results.
- Cabin. Set the cabin you actually want before searching rather than filtering afterwards. Economy and business are priced by completely different logic, and a business search is not an economy search with a filter on top.
Reading the result
Every result is shown against a baseline: the cheapest nonstop on your dates in the cabin you asked for. That comparison is the point. A fare is not good because it is a low number, it is good because it beats what you would otherwise have paid for the same journey.
So read results in this order: the gap against the baseline first, then the total journey time, then the itinerary shape. A large gap with a sane connection is the thing worth acting on. A large gap with a four-hour overnight layover in the wrong direction is a number, not a deal.
- Check the cabin on every leg. A headline business-class result can include a shorter economy sector. The itinerary shows this; the price alone does not.
- Check whether it is one ticket or two. It changes who is responsible if a leg is delayed, and that is worth real money.
- Check the total elapsed time, not the number of stops. Two short connections often beat one long one.
Watch a route instead of refreshing it
Premium cabin pricing responds to how full the cabin already is, not to a calendar, so there is no magic booking day to hit. What works is watching a route over time. Save the routes you are serious about and let them accumulate a history: a fare only reads as good once you know what normal looks like on that route.
This is also the honest answer to "when should I book": the question is unanswerable in the abstract and easy once you have watched the route for a few weeks. There is more on that in when to book long-haul business class.
What not to bother with
Clearing cookies, searching in incognito, and using a VPN to look like you are in another country are the three most repeated pieces of flight advice, and all three do far less than people believe. We wrote up what actually changes the price separately, because the reasoning is more useful than the verdict.
Common questions
- How flexible should my dates be to find cheaper fares?
- A search prices the exact dates you enter. Long-haul premium fares do change bucket day to day, so if your dates are soft it is worth running a search on a day either side and comparing -- each one is priced properly rather than estimated.
- Can I search a whole country or region?
- Region searches are paused. Choose a city or airport for each end of your trip. To compare nearby airports, run a separate search for each pair.
- What is the baseline my results are compared against?
- The cheapest true nonstop on your dates, in the cabin you searched. Comparing against a cheap connecting fare would flatter every result, so the baseline is deliberately the strict one.
- Should I book as soon as I see a good price?
- Only if you know what normal looks like on that route. Watch the route for a while first: a fare is only identifiable as good relative to its own history, not relative to your expectations.
