hack for cheap flights out of west coast cities like Seattle

If you are flying out of a west coast city like Seattle, here is a hack that often works for saving $100 or more on the one-way ticket:

Expedia often lists “bargain fare” rates, but it’s a non-refundable ticket where before purchase the site will give you parameters like, “Departs between 4 PM and 11:59 PM, 0-1 stops, arrives same day,” but you don’t see the flight time until after you’ve bought it (and you can’t get your money back if you don’t like the departure times).

However if you are flying east from the west coast, especially with the change in time zone, this narrows down the bracket of possible departure times. e.g. it takes about 6 hours to fly direct from Seattle to New York. That means if the flight departs after 4 PM and arrives same day (which means before midnight in the destination city), it has to take off between 4 and 6 PM, and is almost certainly a direct flight.

Caveats:

• Note that the bargain fares are sometimes out of Paine Field in Everett instead of SeaTac. That might work for you, but I ended up on one of those only because I didn’t check properly.
• Sometimes it says “Departs between 4 PM and 11:50 PM and arrives NEXT day”, which could mean a vastly longer and more inconvenient layover – so be sure and read the parameters carefully!
• I have only used this for one-way flights since I usually book two one-ways to take advantage of air miles and other tricks. Expedia does offer “bargain fares” for round-trip flights, but note that on the return flight you have the opposite problem – “Departs between 4 PM and 11:59 PM, arrives same day” means a larger range of possible departure/arrival times, when you’re flying to an earlier time zone.