"Compare, compare, compare," says Faye Prosser, owner of Smart Spending Resources in Clayton. "The key is to make sure you look at least three or more sites."

While you should shop around at the most popular travel sites like Orbitz, Expedia, Travelocity, Priceline and Hotwire, you might miss out on some great deals if you don't look at some of the newer sites out there.

"Kayak.com, Travelzoo, Cheapflights.com -- these are sites you go into them, enter information for your itinerary; when, where -- they'll bring up rates from 30 or 40 different places where you can compare."

However, you can not book your ticket from those sites. They will guide you to a purchasing site, like the airlines itself. And keep in mind that Southwest Air does not participate on these sites, so it's worth checking out southwest.com.

"The nice thing about Southwest is that Southwest has a program called, "DING." You download the software and they feed you deals everyday and you'll hear a little ding on your website when a deal comes in."

For even more deals, Prosser suggests you sign up for several of these sites' daily or weekly newsletters.

"Travelzoo.com has a top 20 list that comes out every Wednesday -- top deals right then and there."

Among those top deals is a new carrier called Skybus with $10 seats.

"Starting May 29th flying out of Greensboro/Winston-Salem they are going to fly to Columbus, Ohio, Oakland, California, Boston -- eventually all over the country," says Prosser.

There are only ten cheap seats per flight and the low fare does not include taxes and fees which could raise the price by $50.

"But still that's a great deal."

Other keys to finding frugal fares: book early, at least 21 days in advance, and be flexible. You may find less-expensive flights midday or overnight.

NBC17's Kim Genardo took Prosser's advice and conducted an experiment to find the lowest fare from Raleigh-Durham to Orlando.

She booked three weeks out, for mid-week travel, at anytime of day.

Searching kayak.com, she found a fare on United for $159.60.

The next site tested, ultimatefares.com, returned a trip nearly $30 more at $187.60.

The last site tested was Southwest.com, since the airline does not participate on the other online sites. It returned the costliest trip at $264.80.

So kayak.com found the cheapest seat on a major carrier.

"It is a good deal, "said Prosser, "It is a good deal because right now the average price to fly into Orlando is around $200. $160 is a good deal," said Prosser.

It is not $10, but it is a solid deal for a roundtrip to Florida.

One last tip for frequent fliers: a number of airlines are starting to put expirations on your mileage rewards, so use them or lose them.