How to Find Cheap Business Class Flights Without Credit Card Points (2024)

FAQs

How to get the cheapest business class flights? ›

1. Achieve elite travel status. Elite status is far and away the best route to securing free seat upgrades. Many airlines will provide complimentary upgrade certificates after you've reached a specific level of status, as well as proactively upgrade you during other flights for which you are eligible.

During low season, you may more easily score a cheap business fare. But there are other factors that affect the best time to buy business class flights, including day of the week. Weekends are the most expensive days to fly, while Tuesdays are easiest to get a cheap deal.

Airlines have a lot of seats that they like to sell through business class consolidators. Therefore, business class consolidators are capable of providing discounted fares to travel agents, which help them have excellent profit possibilities on corporate business travel also.

Airlines do occasionally put their business class seats on sale, however, while the price might be a significant discount off the regular price, it's highly unlikely that the prices they offer would ever qualify as “cheap.”

"You should ask prior to door closure, but don't be surprised if they don't move you until after you're in the air if they're going to grant your request."

Most airlines have a different fare class for each letter of the alphabet, and this varies by airline: F is first class, C and J are typically business class, and Y is usually economy, regardless of the airline.

Among the airlines that participate are Air Canada, Air New Zealand, Cathay Pacific, Hawaiian Airlines, Lufthansa, Qantas, Singapore Airlines, SWISS, Virgin Atlantic and Virgin Australia. These are not like other online auctions, though. Only a few airlines actually publish their rules on bidding.

How to find flights with lie flat seats? ›

Just look for flights using wide-body aircraft or those on premium coast-to-coast routes, such as New York to Los Angeles. Before you splurge for business class, though, make sure to use a tool such as Google Flights or SeatGuru to make sure that the aircraft you're booking has lie-flat seats in business class.

Although these tickets can be expensive if you're paying for them with cash, you can sometimes book a seat in these premium cabins using airline miles you've already earned or with points from signing up for certain credit cards. First, you'll need to understand the difference between first and business class.

However, airlines say prices change not because of a consumer's search history on a website, or their cookies, but because of inventory updates or glitches on the website, FareCompare's Rick Seaney said in an email.

Fly with Frontier Airlines

Currently, Frontier Airlines offers the lowest-priced flights around United States.

Do Flight Prices Go Down on Tuesday? The myth has been going around for years, but the truth is that flight prices don't go down on Tuesdays. To be fair, they did at one point in time, and savvy travelers could score a great deal late on a Tuesday night.

It depends on the airline you're flying with, but it is generally cheaper to upgrade to business class at the airport than it is to book a business class ticket from the outset. To upgrade at the airport, you will need to ask about availability and then pay the difference in fare.

Realistically, it's a gamble and getting upgraded to business class at the airport is pretty rare. If luxury and extra legroom is really important to you, book it in advance. However, if you're perfectly willing to fly economy class, and willing to roll the dice, a last-minute upgrade can be the cheapest option.