Have you ever found a great deal on an airline ticket, walked away from your computer for a few minutes, and then returned only to find that the price had gone up?
Such frustration is common these days, but airfares haven’t always been so fickle. Before the airlines were deregulated, the government approved ticket prices, which remained so consistent that they were printed in timetables.
Today, airfares can change several times a day as airlines attempt to set prices low enough to fill the seats on an aircraft but high enough to maximize profit.
Before you travel this week, this month, or this year, make sure you’re beating the system and getting the cheapest tickets you can.
Some important factors to keep in mind before purchasing air tickets:
Know When to Buy
With rates changing daily or hourly in some cases — buying an aeroplane ticket can seem like a difficult task at hand. Luckily, there are some trends, as well as some helpful Web sites, that increase your chances of getting the cheapest airfare possible.
Timing is everything when it comes to buying airline tickets.
Fares are typically highest from eight to 10 weeks and two to three weeks in advance. The “sweet spot,” is four to six weeks before you travel, so try to purchase your tickets then. It’s also a good idea to avoid shopping for airfare on the weekends.
Friday, Saturday, and Sunday are the most expensive days to book aeroplane tickets. While you may have more time to browse, so do other people and ticket prices skyrocket. Wait until Monday, Tuesday or even Wednesday if you can hold out that long, it would enable you to save a lot of money and allow you to get tickets on nominal price.
According to research from CheapAir, the cheapest time to purchase a domestic ticket is 47 days before the day of the flight. We understand that trips can come up suddenly, or you may not make plans until a month before but if you can shoot for that month-and-a-half mark, you end up saving a lot of money.
Search Flights Using an Incognito Window
Many airline pricing sites respond dynamically to multiple searches, meaning your price can actually go up the second time you look. Using the incognito function on Google Chrome will keep sites from raising the price of a flight every time you search for it, as it does not register your previous searches in its history and does a new search every time.
Use a Service to Compare Prices
The best way to find a cheap flight is to compare prices. Whether you’re using sky scanner, sastaticket.pk, or others, make sure you’re able to see every possible airline and their ticket prices for the days you want to travel. Also, remember to keep a cushion for a day or two to move around your travelling if the ticket prices are varying.
Set Alerts for Flights
Thank goodness for technology! There are tons of iPhone, Android, these apps let you set alerts for flights that you want. These apps will tell you when prices drop in and out of your budget as well as when new flights during the times you want have been added or are now available at great prices.
Choose a Flight with Your Destination as a Layover
A super-huge hack to save money is to pick a flight with a layover that’s actually your destination. The whole idea is, you get off the plane at a transit destination and simply don’t continue to the final destination. The flights are frequently cheaper this way because while everyone is trying to go to the final stop, not everyone is trying to go to a place in between.
Fly on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Saturdays
No one wants to fly on these days, so typically aeroplane tickets that leave on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Saturdays are cheapest. If you can’t miss work, there are always red-eye flights.
Fly between 5 a.m. and 7 a.m., or after 8 p.m.
While you may need a lot of coffee after, you’ll have tons of money to spend on tea and snacks after buying an early-morning or late-night flight. They’re typically cheaper because most people don’t want to fly at this time or not prefer to fly at this time.
All Tickets Are Refundable Within 24 Hours
What you may not know is that all aeroplane tickets purchased with money (as opposed to mileage points) are refundable within 24 hours of purchase. If you see a ticket for a cheaper price a few hours to half a day later, feel free to grab that one and cancel your original for a full refund.
Bring Your Own Food
You’ll feel like an absolute genius if you bring snacks or even a lunch/dinner from home on your flight. If you are taking a flight like for instance fly Dubai. Don’t spend an arm and a leg on a damp sandwich that you could make for a fraction of the cost (and tastier too!) at home.
Skip In-Flight Entertainment and Wi-Fi
While many flights offer Wi-Fi and movies for purchase, it’s not a good value. You can download a bunch of different things to read, listen to, and watch pre-flight if you have an iPhone or an Android.
If you’ve downloaded the Netflix app to your phone, you can stream pre-downloaded TV and movies for free. All these apps come in handy when you’re on one of the longest nonstop flights in the world.
Find a credit card with good points you can put toward travel
There are multiple credit cards available in the market that offer benefits on buying air tickets from the credit card, banks like Faysal bank and standard chartered etc. offer many such benefits.
Plan everything yourself, instead of hiring a travel agent
The best way to save money on travel is to plan the whole trip yourself. DIY means more work, but you can typically save money on things like hotels, flights, and tours if you don’t go through an agent.
If you don’t care about the number of connections, you can find cheaper flights.
Flights with connections will be cheaper than direct flights this is because many people, especially people travelling for business, do not want to lose time (after all, time is money) and will pay more for a direct flight. As the airline companies know this, they raise the price for direct flights.
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USe Booking.com. for cheaper and multiple deals on hotels/hostels as per your budget they have a huge selection of hotels and hostels all over the world. Plus, in most cases, you can cancel your reservation up to a few days before the check-in date without any costs!
