The air travel industry is not immune to scams and rip-offs – particularly what are known as phishing emails – so remain alert especially when opening unexpected emails.

Which airlines get hit by phishing email

Phishing Emails

These have been plaguing airlines for years. Some may look like perfectly legitimate communications from valid carriers, but these phony emails ask you to provide personal or credit card information which airlines do not solicit via email. Other phishing messages ask you to click links designed to unleash viruses. Messages in phishing emails may include reminders about flights you never booked.

What to do: Hit delete. If you have any questions about the legitimacy of any email, contact your airline immediately. One more tip: change your miles program password.

Are Free Rewards Tickets Actually Free?

Free Tickets that Aren’t Free

Some in the Dallas area recently received postcards bearing the Delta logo. The message: they’d been selected to receive “2 round trip airfares to anywhere in the contiguous United States, good for the next 12 months.” A freebie was implied the word ”free” did not appear anywhere on the postcard. That’s because it wasn’t free. I’m told to get the tickets, you had to jump through hoops: sit through a 90-minute presentation to entice you into joining a travel club (that may have membership costs in the thousands of dollars) and you also had to pay $200 for taxes on the free tickets. In case you’re wondering, taxes on average non-stop domestic tickets run about $23 round-trip or about $43 for a connecting flight.

What to do: Use your common sense. Learn as much as you possibly can about any such promotion before getting involved. Is it legit? Might want to check with the Better Business Bureau. I checked with Delta and they say they are not involved in this in any way. Such an expensive membership payment – if true – also strikes me as a good reason to stay away. Look, there are perfectly legitimate ways tickets and miles are used to sweeten purchases, but if a purchase is solely about promises of future travel and/or discounts and comes with a four figure price tag, without more information I don’t like the sound of it.

There are No Free-Tickets-for-Life. Usually.

Don’t believe everything you hear. Wish I had a nickel for every story I’ve heard about how babies born on planes who get free-flights-for-life. The rumor-busters at Snopes.com say those are phony stories.

Oh, wait. There was a child born on an AirAsia flight a couple of years back, and he did get free flights for life. The mom, too. OK, sometimes the stories are true.

Think of it as an internet time machine that allows you to visit the past – as far back as 1996 anyway – via billions of carefully archived website pages from all kinds of companies – including the airlines. I used WayBack as well as my own historical data to take a look at recent air travel history.

See Airline Websites of Years Past

Some highlights:

1996: If you type in the address for American Airlines, www.aa.com you won’t get the airline; at this point it still belongs to something called Architech & Arts (and except for the title, it’s all in Japanese).

1997: TWA’s site greets visitors with this cheery message: “Welcome aboard the TWA ‘We’re up to something good’ Web Site!” What they’re not up to is selling tickets online.

1998: American Airlines’ site is up and it proclaims itself, “The most popular airline site on the Web!” Not much of a contest though considering how few had any internet presence at all.

2000: By this point, Expedia, Orbitz and Travelocity all have websites (and some have been up for years).

2001: The September 11 terrorist attacks. American’s website carries this message: “I know that I speak for every employee at American Airlines when I extend our deepest sympathy to those who lost a loved one, family member or friend on American Airlines Flight 11, American Airlines Flight 77, United Airlines Flight 93, United Airlines Flight 175 or at the sites of these tragic accidents. Our thoughts and prayers are with you at this time of immense sorrow.” AA’s CEO was wrong about one thing; these were no ”accidents.”

Meanwhile, people are afraid to get on planes although sites like Southwest try to provide reassurance: “We know that you may be asking the question, ‘Should I fly by air?’. The 32,000+ Employees of Southwest are hard at work, night and day, to provide you with the safest and most dependable transportation possible.” Eventually passengers return but airlines begin cutting capacity as a survival mechanism, something they continue to do throughout the decade.

2002: The TSA’s website is up and running, just months after the airport security agency was created. Eventually travelers will have to go through various screenings including the so-called naked picture machine (later abandoned) and are forced to remove their shoes.

2008: The economy picks up again, and we’re seeing flights to Europe for about $700 round-trip. Then, boom – the big recession. Airlines are in trouble again. Brand new fees become commonplace (including previously unheard of charges for first checked bags introduced earlier in the year).

2009: Post-recession deals to Europe include round-trip flights for about $400.

2013: U.S. travelers still don’t like fees but they’re getting used to them. And they’re still taking their shoes off, though there are some exceptions to this rule.

2113: Virgin Galactic advertises non-stops to Mars for $14 million (well, in my imagination they do).

More from Rick Seaney:

Take a Ride in an Airline Time Machine

Be sure to check out my tips for avoiding fees at the end.

But first, listen as Mr. Airfare Expert explain why fees don’t bother him:

5 airlines that still have a heart

Airlines Fees – Nutty, or Survival Mechanism?

At this point, you may be thinking, have the airlines gone nuts? They may be brazen, but they’re not nuts. It has to do with survival. Fees are a big part of airline revenue today. Back in 1990, about 88% of airline revenue came from airfares which is all perfectly logical. But according to the latest government figures, last year fares made up only 70% of airline revenue. Much of the rest of it came from fees.

Yes, the airlines are doing pretty well for the moment – surviving (and in some cases, thriving) – but think how many carriers disappeared in the difficult days since 9/11 and the recession of a few years back (Aloha, Midwest and Skybus to name a few, while iconic TWA flew its last flight on Dec. 1, 2001).

Got a complaint? Here’s how to file

Hidden Fees

A big problem for a lot of infrequent travelers is, many fees change without passengers being aware of it. Sure, we hear about the sexy ones:

• Frontier: New $2 charge for soft drinks (as of July 1)
• Frontier: Upcoming carry-on bag fee for some customers up to $100 (effective TBA)
• American, Delta, United, US Airways: Newly raised domestic change fee of $200

But did you know AirTran bumped up the charge for a first checked-bag from $20 to $25 (with a second checked-bag rising from $25 to $35), or that Delta now offers priority boarding for $10?

You could even say easy-going Southwest is getting fee-friendly with its new no-show policy; starting this fall, you’d better call ahead if you can’t make your flight or your ticket will be worth zip.

The Brutal Truth about Fees

There is a certain brutal honesty to today’s airline fees and it’s real simple: You pay for what you use. If you want a soft drink (on Frontier and Spirit, anyway), you’ll pay. Want to load up a huge suitcase? You’ll pay. Want to bring along your pup on the flight? You’ll pay. Whether these fees are worth it or not, only the individual passenger can say for sure.

How Passengers Can Avoid Fees

This too can be real simple.

Avoid bag fees:

• Fly JetBlue or Southwest (for free checked-bags).
• Watch the weight limits on checked and carry-on bags (these fees are expensive).
• Pack light and use a carry-on (although Allegiant and Spirit now charge all passengers for all bags).

Avoid soft drink/snack fees:

• Bring along food from home (or find cheaper offerings at the airport).
• If traveling on a pay-for-soft-drinks airline, you’ll have to purchase drinks in the airport (or bring an empty water bottle through security and once you’re past the check-point, fill up at a drinking fountain).

More from Rick Seaney:

Have the Airlines Gone Nuts? More Fees

Listen to Rick Seaney tell editor Anne McDermott how she went wrong:

Find the cheapest possible summer flight right now

Summer Prices – Good News, Bad News

The reason is simple: Summer is when people want to fly, so the airports make hay while the sun shines in the form of higher ticket prices. And let’s not forget some new fees. However, we do have ways to lower airfare so check our tips below. Then get shopping. Sale prices are limited to just a few seats which can (and do) disappear quickly.

Another way to save money: know what to pay.

Summer Airfare Prices to Aim For

If you can’t find the prices shown below, try to be as flexible on your travel dates as possible – that’ll help.

For flights lasting 1 to 1-1/2 hours: Example, between Washington, D.C. and Atlanta

• What to pay: About $165 round-trip
• What’s too much: More than $200 round-trip

For flights lasting from 2 to 4 hours: Example, between Chicago and Tampa

• What to pay: About $250 round-trip
• What’s too much: Try not to go over $300 round-trip

For flights from coast-to-coast: Example, between Los Angeles and New York

• What to pay: About $375 round-trip
• What’s too much: Try to stay under $400 round-trip

Ways to Save

Check out FareCompare’s new Summer Travel Guide. It’s loaded with money-saving tips and here are a few:

• Shop for airfare on the cheapest day/time: Tuesday afternoons
• Fly the cheapest days: Tuesday, Wednesday or Saturday
• Hub-to-hub metro city flights are generally cheaper than flying to/from smaller airports
• Connecting flights (with stops) can be a lot cheaper than direct or non-stop flights

Can’t find a deal that’s right for you? Check out these ways to save money – they really work.

Summer Vacation Travel Guide 2013

1.  Follow the ABC’s of Airfare Shopping:

Aim for flexibility: Be flexible enough to explore alternative days off so you take advantage of the cheapest days to fly which are typically Tuesday, Wednesday and Saturday.

Buy tickets on Tuesdays: For domestic U.S. airline tickets, Tuesday at 3 p.m. EST is almost always the cheapest day and time to find the best airfares.

Compare prices every time you shop: Perusing one airline’s website these days is not going to cut it. Sure, sometimes your favorite carrier will have the cheapest flight, but not always. Go to an airfare comparison shopping site (like this one).

Are you a beginner? Relax and see our simple tips for the cheapest flights

2. Fly early, Fly Late

The best deals are found during periods when fewer people want to fly and here’s how it breaks down for summer:

• Fly until late May and sometimes through early to late June
• Fly starting in the mid-August or the last week of August (or beyond)

Usually prices to Europe take a steep jump at the end of May while domestic prices begin to soar in early to mid-June. Both come down significantly starting the middle or last week in August. This is truly a case of “good things come to he who waits.”

3. Increase Your Flexibility

You already know the cheapest days to fly are Tuesdays, Wednesday and Saturdays but there are cheaper times of day to fly as well. This can vary somewhat (again, a comparison shopping site makes cheaper times easier to find), but what follows is a good rule of thumb:

• Fly overnights or red-eyes
• Fly at dawn
• Fly in the late evening (and often during the dinner hour)

Notice that these are less popular times to fly, so airlines drop prices to fill up their empty seats.

Another money-saving option is to take a mini-break (or even a whole series of them). Many airlines offer weekend specials but you must be flexible enough to travel the same week they’re advertised – and these last-minute sales can also be found on the Deals Blog.

4. Target Cheaper Destinations

Cheaper domestic cities: Orlando, Denver, Boston, the Baltimore/Washington, D.C. area, Ft. Lauderdale (but compare flight prices to nearby Miami, too), Austin and San Antonio.

Cheaper international cities: Dublin or Shannon, Barcelona or Madrid, plus Frankfurt and Zurich. In the Caribbean try Nassau and San Juan.

5. Save with Stops

If you’re willing to forego the convenience of a non-stop flight, you might save as much as 60% (this can vary a lot depending on arrival/departure cities and other factors). Another good rule of thumb: if it’s inconvenient, it’s cheaper.

6. Book One-Passenger-at-a-Time

I’ve discussed this trick before, and while it can’t always work, when it does it’s a winner. Say you’re shopping for a family of five. When asked to put in the “number of passengers” put “1″ instead of “5.” Continue checking the prices; if at some point as you book one passenger at a time, the price suddenly jumps, bingo! You’ve just saved some money.

Blame it on a quirk of airline reservation systems that does not allow different prices in a single reservation. If there are one or two tickets at $100, and the next highest price is $200 – and you’re booking a family of five on the same reservation – you’ll pay $200 for all five tickets. Unless you book one-by-one.

7. Avoid Costly Fees

Unless you’re flying JetBlue or Southwest, a single checked bag will usually add $50 to the cost of a single round-trip ticket and who needs that? Use a carry-on. You’ll be surprised how far (and how long) one can take you. Bonus: no worries about lost luggage.

Smaller fees add up too. If a family of five each gets the $7 sandwich on the plane, both coming and going, that’s another $70 right there. Bring a lunch from home.

More from Rick Seaney:

7 Ways to Save on Summer Airfare