How 2...Get the best price on airline tickets

Etan Horowitz | Sentinel Staff Writer

December 22, 2007

There's nothing more frustrating than buying an airplane ticket online and then seeing the price drop a few weeks later.

With Yapta, you can track a flight so you'll get alerted when the price drops.

1. Enter your e-mail address in the blank field under the words "Not a member? Join now!" Fill in the information to create a Yapta account and click to join Yapta.

2. Wait for the confirmation e-mail to arrive in your e-mail Inbox, open the message and click on the confirmation link.

3. Once you are signed in to the Yapta Web site, click on the "Get Yapta" tab and download the appropriate version of Yapta.

4. Once you've downloaded and installed Yapta, go to an airline Web site to search for a flight. Yapta will automatically detect that you are on an airline Web site and you'll be asked to "Enable Yapta." Once you've enabled Yapta, a little icon that says "Tag it with Yapta" will appear next to the different flights. Click that button to track a particular flight or flights.

5. Those flights are now saved in the "My Trips" section of your Yapta profile and you will get an e-mail when the price of those flights drops. You also can have Yapta only e-mail you when a flight drops below a certain price.

Yapta also lets you track the price of a flight after you've bought it, and it will automatically send instructions on getting a refund or credit if the price drops.

Just forward your airline e-mail confirmation to flights@yapta.com to track the price.

You also can track flights without downloading Yapta by inputting the details about each flight you want to track. (Yapta does not track the prices of Southwest Airlines flights.)