Travel

By Craig Saturday, September 28th, 2015 21 Comments

Do you like finding ways to get cheap flights?

The first thing you need to do is know the best websites to bookmark for searching deals, and to know the general trends to be aware of.

Another important thing to remember is this, be ready to act! You can play the game of watching and waiting on price changes which can reward you, but it can also frustrate and cost you.

The best way is to have a price YOU are comfortable with.

On some flight search websites you can sign up for email alerts of a price you re willing to pay, such as Airfare Watchdog.

When that price is available, or lower, you can jump on it. That way you ll be satisfied you got a good deal, and you won t have any regrets.

Airlines generally release tickets 11 months in advance. Start researching once you know you are taking a trip and continue to check them at least once per week.

Air fares fluctuate constantly. You can’t predict as supply and demand are out of our control (just like the stock market).

Have a price YOU are comfortable paying. You can play the game of watching and waiting forever, which can reward you, but it can also frustrate and cost you.

Be ready to act as soon as the price you are happy with is available. You’ll be satisfied and won’t have regrets.

There really is no hard and fast rule. However, there are some general trends to be aware of.

Be mindful of when you are traveling. Peak season and holiday weekends will have the most demand, so expect higher prices.

You can, however, stack the odds in your favour by buying at a certain time.

A study by CheapAir. who analyzed 560 million flight searches, found an optimal time to buy was on average 7 weeks in advance (for domestic flights). Others have suggested a sweet spot of between 3-7 weeks in advance. The WORST time was within 14 days of flying, or too far in advance, more than 5 months.

For international flights, Cheap Air found the sweet spot is 11-12 weeks prior to departure.

As for which day of the week to buy on, they suggest no particular day was better than the other and buying on a Tuesday and Wednesday was somewhat of an urban legend.

If you want some price guidance, consider an airfare prediction tool such as Bing s Farecast.

It might not matter when you buy your tickets, but cheaper deals can be found depending on the day you choose to fly.

The consensus is that it’s best to FLY OUT on a Tuesday, Wednesday or Saturday. These are typical off-peak days usually meaning lower fares and less passengers. You also have a better chance of grabbing frequent flyer seats. Fridays and Sundays are usually the most expensive days to fly.

The best tactic to save money on flights is to be FLEXIBLE with your travel dates. Give yourself the best chance by searching a couple of days, or even weeks, either side of your preferred departure date.

If you are locked into exact dates, it will be more challenging to get a better deal.

Flying at unpopular hours, such as the red-eye or early in the AM instead of late morning through afternoon, increases your chance of getting cheaper tickets.

Even if you are only flying one way, sometimes they are so expensive that the round trip ticket is actually cheaper. Just forfeit the return leg portion. We have done this from Sydney to LA. Crazy, but it happens.

Flights with longer layovers usually have lower price tags.

One advantage of the Expedia flight search is that you can plan for longer stopovers on the same ticket.

Instead of choosing a destination and then spending days or weeks trying to find a flight deal, considering simply flying to where the flight deals already are.

Choose a destination you can comfortably afford overall and will enjoy.

Simply use a flight search engine that lets you type in your departure city and search for a list of cheap flights to anywhere in the world.

The Kayak Explore tool is a great way to search for flights to anywhere. Simply type in your departure city, your departure date, and select explore.

If there is more than one airport near your origin or planned destination, check them both.

The more options you have in terms of airports and travel dates, the more likely you will find what may be one of the last discount seats to where you are going.

These programs are usually free to join and you can earn points towards cheaper fares, upgrades, and free companion tickets.

It may take a while to accumulate points, but they CAN add up if you fly often.

Many programs are created for airline partnerships where they’ll recognize and honor each others’ miles such as the new Qantas / Emirates partnership.

Frequent flyer programs mostly accrue by miles. So even if you don’t travel very often, taking just one long haul flight will add to your points balance.

If you have a premium status, such as Gold Or Silver, on most programs you usually gain access to the airline lounges even if you’re flying economy. You also get priority check-in, priority security, and priority boarding.

If you only travel once or twice per year it’s probably best for you to use a flight search engine and get your best deal instead of staying loyal to one airline (search engine recommendations down below).

However, if you are a frequent flyer, paying a little extra for flights by staying loyal to a premium airline or alliance such as OneWorld could be your best long-term bet for getting flight perks.

For an extensive list of frequent flyer programs click here.

If you are using a credit card, why not accumulate frequent flyer points? The best cards and benefits depend on which country you live in and what cards you have access to.

In Australia, we use a Commonwealth Bank AMEX Card which gives us 2 Qantas points for every dollar spent.

We use this card to pay all our travel expenses, business costs, plus everyday expenses and bills. This does take discipline. Make sure you don’t accrue interest by paying it off in full each month (very important).

If you don’t pay it off in full, it won’t matter about how many points you collect as you’ll be amassing huge interest which will keep you at home and away from your dream travel destination.

Don’t forget to shop at member stores that are affiliated with the airlines. By shopping at these prefered stores you will also accumulate points. Our credit card program is linked to our phone bill company and supermarket chain.

We just paid for two return flights to the Gold Coast in Queensland using frequent flyer points, saving us a few hundred dollars. We still have a lot of points left over.

Using credit cards takes discipline and smart choices, but over time it can add up and reward you. Most credit cards offer free points as a sign-up bonus, this can be anywhere from 5,000 to 50,000 points.

For USA residents check out this credit card list by The Points Guy.

For Australian residents check out the list of cards here.

To become a pro and get a deep understanding of how to accumulate and use points for flights, go and learn from these guys :

Awardwallet is a free site that will track your balances in one convenient spot, plus it can even alert you if your miles are going to expire. It keeps track of reward programs such as frequent flyer miles, hotel and credit card points.

I don’t know what the situation is in your country, but in Australia, travel agents can still be a useful resource when it comes to booking flights.

Flight Centre offers a LOWEST AIRFARE GUARANTEE. They claim they won t be beaten on price and will beat any comparable quote.

This has personally benefited us. Once when we flew from Australia to the USA we searched online for our cheapest fare, then went into a local Flight Centre office. They were able to beat the lowest flight we found online.

Sometimes, the lowest fares are only available via travel agents.

In Australia we have discovered a sneaky way to search flight deals by using the Expedia Japan site. This has also worked via the Expedia Brazil site. To learn more about this strategy click here.

If you’re a student or under 26 years old, ask about student discounts at STA Travel. STA Travel s Exclusive Tickets can save you money.

The best airfare sales can go largely unannounced. Open a new free email account just for this purpose and sign up for your favourite airline eNewsletters.

Promotional fairs and discount codes reserved only for email subscribers can save you money. You can also be notified of last minute deals.

Go and “Like” your favorite airlines on facebook and “follow” them on twitter.

It’s getting more common for travel companies to release hot deals directly through their social media channels.

Plus, they often run contests, giveaways and announce any flight complications via Facebook and Twitter.

Think outside the box. Write down why you want to go to that exotic destination and see if you can find an alternative that costs less and / or closer to home.

For example, skip the Caribbean and go to Mexico. Instead of Paris head to Budapest. Many people dream of visiting faraway destinations while forgetting what is in their own backyard.

What other cheaper alternatives can you think of?

There are no certainties, but you can try stacking the odds in your favour by doing the following:

Travel during peak times when economy is full.

Be a member of your airline’s Loyalty Program.

Pray for a broken seat.

Don’t hide the fact you have a leg injury!

Some important things you need to know before you start using our recommended flight search engines:

1. Delete your cookies/history - or load each site in a new incognito browser window before looking up flight prices a second time. They store your search data so when you come back you are pinged as being more ready to buy and so are highly likely to be offered higher prices than you originally saw. Cheeky!

2. Go directly to the airline’s own website  - after you have used the flight search engines listed and found your cheapest fair, go direct to that airlines own website. Many airlines have lower fares only available on their own site.

3. Go to your destination’s airport website and see if there are any other airlines you can consider that don’t show up in the big search sites and go to their website.

4. Not all airlines appear on all search engines - Be aware many search sites don’t list low cost carriers (LCC) as these budget carriers try to keep costs low by not paying a booking commission to search sites. And they can neglect to show many of the more obscure airlines.

Here is a list of flight search websites we personally use to start searching:

Skyscanner is a great flight comparison site and easy to use. It searches all the airlines, including budget carriers to find the best deal.

Once you ve found your flight on Skyscanner you are taken to the airline to make your booking (no middlemen).

You can look for flights on a specific date, week, month or even see the prices over the whole year.

One great feature is it allows you to type in “Everywhere” in the “To” box as an option. This helps you to select the cheapest destination from your point of origin. You can also just leave the “To” box blank.

Kayak compares hundreds of sites in a comprehensive, fast and intuitive display. Once you find what you want, they give you choices where to book.

You can search +/- 3 days either side of your preferred date, flexible for a month and add nearby airports and other filters and a price alert.

As mentioned the Kayak Explore tool is another great way to search for flights to anywhere. Simply type in your departure city, your departure date, and select explore.

Adioso allows you to search destinations with as much flexibility as you want, and uses natural language in it’s intuitive search bar.

For example you can type in “NYC next Friday night” or “California in July” or “Sydney to Thailand for 10 to 15 days”.

The ITA Matrix Software is also a good way to search flights if you know your travel dates. Google acquired this site a few years ago and there are numerous parameters you can set. It s what travel agents use and it shows all the airlines, not just the ones who pay to be included.

The downside is that you cannot purchase the tickets. You have to get the information you need and then go direct to the airline’s website.

Farecompare tracks millions of airfare price changes every day. They deliver price-drop notifications the instant prices change.

Airfarewatchdog hooks you into time sensitive airline deals too difficult to track on your own.