There are so many ways to get cheap airline flights these days. You have to time it just right and maybe follow a few rules or buy your ticket with no refund policy, but you can really keep the costs down if you work at it.

I'm signed up on a bunch of different cheap flight lists that notify me of specials on airline flights. For example, Travelocity.com let's me enter a list of about 5 possible destinations and they email me when the price goes up or down by $25 or more. That's really helpful when I'm looking for tickets and saves me a bunch of time searching.

Frontier Airlines sends me a weekly email about their specials. You sign up on their site and tell them something like your zip code and they let you know when flights from your airport are cheaper. Their email includes a lot of different destinations and sometimes they're not the one you want, but sometimes I get ideas from it, too. Or it reminds me that I've always wanted to go someplace where they've got a special and I start making some plans.

Sometimes, though, I have to do a bit of a search when there's not a clear special to my destination. We all know about 14-day advance bookings and how they're cheaper. It really pays to plan ahead most of the time. Still, sometimes you can catch a deal at the last minute if you're really keeping track.

If you're looking to fly cheap, there are a lot of good sites to browse. Start with Travelocity.com and FrontierAirlines.com Get on their email lists. Then go into some others like CheapTickets.com, Orbitz.com, and PriceLine.com. Some of them have lists, too. Priceline lets you bid on tickets, but you have to be willing to buy them right then and there to get the good prices.

Do your research, find your cheap flights and have a really good time!