Why are car rentals advertised for $6 a day but the cheapest is always $77?

[Isaac Zachary]

Originally Posted by JSH

Frequent flyer status. You should ALWAYS sign up for the frequent flyer program for the airline you are flying. Just being a base member puts your above about 1/3 the people on a flight.
When you check in also matters with the earlier the better. You should also always check in online the day before your flight - preferable as soon as possible. Never wait to check in the same day at the ticket counter.
You should also purchase your ticket directly from the airline not through a 3rd party reseller. If you have a 3rd party ticket you are pretty much on your own and airlines will tell you to talk the 3rd party that sold you the ticket if anything happens.

Thanks! I'll try to keep that all in mind. The only airline into our town is United. The next town over now has Frontier too, but it is now 3 hours to drive there instead of the 1 hour it used to be. One might as well as drive to Denver where the flights are much cheaper.

The thing is we've flown on a different airline every time we've flown. Once on United, once on Interjet (now bankrupt), once on Viva Aerobus, once on Spirit, now this is the second time on United. Those are all our flights in our whole lives.

The only time we had planned several months in advance to go on a flight was right before COVID hit. We ended up not being able to go, so got a 2-year cupon to apply to another flight, but then never used it so lost the money.