Vagabondish is reader-supported. When you buy through links on our site, we may earn a small affiliate commission. Read our disclosure.
Flying can be frustrating to say the least. Hours upon hours in airports, praying for checked baggage to arrive at the same place that you do, increasingly stringent security measures – it all makes for a stressful day to be sure.
Add onto that the sheer cost of flying, taxes, fuel surcharges, and other erroneous fees, and if you’re like me you are seething before the plane even takes off.
Have you ever thought about hitch-hiking? On an airplane?
There are a few sources for this mode of travel which have been around for a while:
The premise of these services is that airline companies who don’t fill flights would rather the seats go at a discount than not at all. So they sell their extra seats to the above companies, who in turn offer them to their subscribers.
Here’s how it works: You purchase a “voucher” to fly from Los Angeles to Hawaii for $179 for example. Once you have the pass in hand (and within a year of purchasing it usually), you submit your travel window or preferred dates of travel. You will be notified of any available seats, and you basically fly on a glorified stand-by basis.