With summer practically upon us we thought we’d present a blog about how to book cheap airline flights. The summer season, when the kids are off from school, is one of the busiest of the year and, even though booking travel online is much less complicated than it used to be, many people still end up spending more than they want to on their tickets. One of the reasons for this is that airlines have, in the last couple of years, started charging for practically everything. From extra luggage to meals, snacks and even pillows, your average airline tickets can actually end up costing you nearly 25% more depending on what you need while traveling.
With that in mind, here are a slew of excellent tips that you can use to pay as little as possible for your next airline tickets. Good luck and enjoy.
- Using the 24 hour rule is easy. The morning after you book a flight, check to see if the price of your airfare fell. If it did (and this isn’t so unusual) what you’ll want to do is call the airline as soon as you can, cancel your flight and then rebook At the new, lower price of course.
- If your schedule allows for it, taking last-minute trips is an excellent way to save. Many airlines cut their prices when they can’t fill every seat and, if you go at the right time, you can take advantage of this. Many will send out email announcements of their coming weekend offers.
- According to research, leaving on a Wednesday is the cheapest day of the week to fly, especially if you’re flying domestically. The reason for this is that, on Wednesday, most airlines have more empty seats than usual and will release them at a cheaper price point.
- If you’re big on social media, you can check your Twitter and Facebook accounts as some airlines are starting to experiment with ‘blasting’ excellent fares to these sites. You’ll have to be quick though because most of the specials that these airlines, including JetBlue, advertise on social media are gone quite quickly.
- If it’s possible, you may want to consider flying with two different airlines. The fact is, many sell reasonably priced one-way tickets and you may find that one airline is cheaper for your outgoing flight while another has a better rate for your return flight. For that matter, you can also use one airport to fly into but fly out of another.
- Of course there’s always frequent flyer miles and, if you fly enough, you should definitely consider getting a frequent flyer card with a specific airline and use them as often as you can. There are also credit cards that offer travel rewards and, if you travel enough, it might be worth getting one.
- Early morning flights are usually the cheapest. After that, flights that leave during or just after lunch are the next cheapest.
- There are a number of free alert websites and apps that you can use that will send you alerts when a great deal is seen somewhere for an airline flight. For example, AirfareWatchdog.com uses actual people to vet their deals rather than computers, meaning that many of their offerings won’t be available online.
- The best time of the day to look for airline ticket deals is in the morning.
- The absolute cheapest time to fly is with what the airlines call a ‘red-eye’. This is a flight that leaves very late and arrives either very late or very early in the morning, hence the name.
- Booking your tickets in advance is a well-known tip for finding great airfares and experts will tell you that booking at least six weeks in advance is the best.
- When traveling, there’s nothing better than having a little bit of flexibility in your dates. If you can leave a little later and come back a little sooner (or vice versa) there’s a great chance that you will find a better price than if you had stuck to specific dates.
- If possible, look for an airport that is close to your destination but not the biggest in the area. The reason is that, at many large airports, you will find airlines that have a monopoly and thus charge more money. The extra time and energy that you spend traveling to an airport that is further out may be well worth it.
- Finally, what many people fail to do is check the actual airline’s website when they are searching for their airline tickets. Many times and airline will host a private sale on their website only and, in many cases, they reserve the best prices only for visitors to their website.
Best of luck with your travel and vacation plans this summer. We hope that the tips and advice about will help you to get some excellent tickets and, wherever you go, we wish you the very best of times. See you soon.