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Saving Strategies
Cheap Charlie · April 14, 1999

I don't know whether you clip coupons from the Sunday newspaper and save them from packets sent in the mail, but I certainly do. I love saving money.

My girlfriend, who would go out of her way to pay full price, admits that her tolerance for my bargain-hunting is based on the joy I get when I find a great deal. I play a game to try to pay for my newspapers that week through grocery coupons I find.

Imagine my joy when I discovered my first airline coupon. I didn't quite believe it, but upon carefully checking out the coupon, I realized that there really are coupons worth hundreds of dollars.

Airline coupons come in all shapes and sizes. Virtually every airline engages in some form of couponing. Airline coupons come from shopping malls with a minimum purchase of merchandise, they come in the mail together with takeout Chinese restaurant menus, they show up in credit card bills, they appear in clothing catalogs, city tourism offices send them out with packets of brochures, and you'll often find them with frequent flyer materials.

Sometimes, when the airline discount coupon comes with a purchase of a low-cost item, it is worth more than the item itself. The discounts are normally excellent, providing transportation for far less than advance purchase tickets.

Coupons are like found money. And if you know how to squeeze the most from them the bargains can get even better.

Here's the best part. This is the secret few airlines seem to promote: Most airlines will honor the coupons of competitors. So, if you have a coupon on airline A but prefer to fly on airline B, you can almost always use one airline's coupon on a competing airline. You just have to ask.

Call your preferred airline and ask them if they will honor another airline's coupon. The agent will ask which airline and then will asked for the "Reference Number," tucked in the corner of the coupon. Once the agent has the information, it will take a minute or two, but you'll soon have an answer.

Not all coupons are transferable from airline to airline, but the majority of them are. Frequent flyer coupons are an important exception to this rule.

Another great benefit is that unlike frequent flyer coupons, which have plenty of restrictions, these basic coupons can be shared with friends and family.

Last Christmas, Continental Airlines offered a "zone discount coupon" for each $25 worth of merchandise purchased at a local shopping mall. I was in my big-spender mode and ended up with four coupons. The coupons were totally transferable to friends. I ended up using them on USAir to visit friend and family.

The most important information on a coupon is the fine print. Here, you will find the restrictions and rules for obtaining your discount. These are important -- no matter with which airline you attempt to use the coupon, these fine-print restrictions will stay in effect. You may have a "coupon for a coupon" and have to mail in a request for the actual coupon. Some coupons require a handling fee, others have blackout dates, some require that you use a specific credit card and several will require travel with another person or from specific airports.

When dealing with airline coupons, the stakes are far more than just a dollar off on a bottle of dishwasher detergent -- airline coupons are serious marketing tools that can save you hundreds of dollars.

Charlie Leocha is the Boston-based author of Travel Rights: Know the Rules of the Road and the Air Before You Go. Cheap Charlie appears every Monday on this site. E-mail him at cheapch@aol.com or access his Web site.