It can be quite annoying knowing that the person that sits next to us in the airplane paid only a fraction compared to what we pay for the flight. If we travel often, it is important to look for the best deals available. We could do this without haggling with the travel agent. The most common advice is to book early and it is next to impossible to get cheap airfares if we book last minute. The best deals are often available if we book 6 months before the actual departure. As more and more seat are sold, there will be lower availability and the airfare cost will increase. This is a common economics principle.
In general, we should try to be open-minded and it isn’t necessary to choose major airlines with huge airplanes. Budget airlines could still get us into many destinations with much lower costs. This can help us to save money. It is also a good idea to be more flexible with date. Depending on our destinations, it should be possible to travel at lower costs, especially during mid-week. Airfares could be quite high in Sunday as people go back to their homes to work.
Once we have been flexible, we should try to be consistent. Many flights come with their own terms and conditions. It means that there could be excessive change or cancellation fees. It is a bad idea to change our mind once we have booked a flight. We should also use flight search engine to make sure that we get the best airfares possible. Websites such as Travelocity and Expedia are not really flight search engines, they are actually online travel engines. Common flight search engines include SideStep, Kayak and Foundem. With enough research, we should be able to find flights that can provide us with low-cost trip.
It is also a good idea to use hubs, especially if we plan to go somewhere that’s a little but obscure. When we go to this place, we should make sure that we get the best deals and often we could do this by choosing hubs. It is also important to avoid school holidays. During school holidays, travel could be more expensive, including airfare. It’s a no-brainer that we should go only during non-peak season. We also shouldn’t forget package holidays and we should be able to reduce overall costs by decoupling hotels and flights for long haul and city breaks. Again, this allows us to get the best possible deals.
The cheapest trip with airplane is usually during Wednesday and Saturday mornings. However, we should know that the cheapest flights could be sold our rather quickly, so again, we should book it a few months in advance. Some airplanes offer deals if we choose round-trip with them. Flying only one way can be more expensive compared to bundling round-trip. We should also make sure that the flight we are planning is the outbound one. This is important because the airline may not allow us to board for the return during a round-trip, if we have don’t flew the outbound leg.