Know Your Flight Budget
I have seen several trips got postponed or cancelled after deciding on place and vacation days, due to high air tickets.
So, know how much you can afford to pay for your flight. Check for flights, before planning for the trip.
Clear Browser Cookies
I was trying to book a cheap flight ticket to New York JFK. I was looking for over a week to get the cheapest air fare. I decided on the flight and days of travel.
Finally, air fare price was $50 less than previous fares. I was using Firefox for last 1 week to search for the fare.
I was using Chrome when I saw the lowest air fare to New York.
So, I went to Firefox (where frequent flyer data was saved), ticket price was $50 higher.
Same ticket, same flight in Firefox was $50 highest than Chrome.
That’s when I realized, airlines were using cookies to track my fare prices and searches.
I cleared the Firefox cookies and cache, then same search query gave the lower fare.
Always clear your cache and cookies when searching for flight tickets and use different browsers.
When to Book Flight tickets
Don’t buy airline tickets earlier than 3 ½ months before departure.
Looks like airlines will manage the fare actively from 8 weeks of travel date. So, your best deal will be offered 8 weeks before the travel date.
- Airfare prices can rise dramatically within 14 days of departure
Book at 3 PM Tuesdays
Airlines offer sale prices at 3 PM Tuesday.
When one airline published the lowest fare for a route, then other airlines will start matching the lowest fare.
Shop for domestic airfare Tuesdays at 3pm eastern time.
Search around the expert travel sites. Pretty much all the experts agree that airlines publish the best rates at 3 PM on Tuesdays.
Same flight ticket will cost $199 on Tuesday 3 PM and could go up $499 on Sunday.
Cheapest Travel Dates
The cheapest days to fly are usually Tuesday, Wednesday and Saturday.
Also, flying on major holidays can be cheap. But, if you miss the flight, you might be stuck for few days.
Raghu,
Great points about finding cheap flights. In addition I also suggest “positioning flights”. Positioning flights are operated by most major air carriers in U.S. All you have to do is call up the airline booking agent directly and ask them if they had any positioning flights that flies to the same destination. If they did, it will be lesser cost. There are other techniques we discuss in our blog at http://www.howdoifindcheapflights.com. Feel free to check it out and do let your friend know.
Cheers!
Sally.
I booked a tkt. from MAA to DEN by BA. It was offered to me at USD 1022/- After 10days the same travel site offered the tkt. for the same date and flt. at USD 989/-. Why this reduction. I can understand if there is an increase in Fare. But in the Airline site it was constant during that period. Similarly I was deceived by another site and it charged me extra Rs. 5000/- per tkt at the time of booking and payment thro’ Credit Card. After 3days the fare was showing a lesser amount (Rs.5000 less). I know the Airlines have different fares like Q,N,etc for the Economy class. But how can there be a reduction?
It’s very common. No big deal.
I’m having trouble following the blog… I got the below mail from noreply@HSB but i cannot see the comments since past many days. Reply to my posts are invisible everytime thought i get a notification mail… I’m just not sure why this is happening and since long i’ve been posting things which didn’t showed up on HSB
There is a new comment to 10 Tips to Find Cheap Flight Tickets.
Comment Link:
http://www.happyschoolsblog.com/tips-find-cheap-flight-tickets/#comment-143606
Author: HSB
Which video?
Link: http://www.happyschoolsblog.com/tips-find-cheap-flight-tickets/
Manage your subscriptions:
http://www.happyschoolsblog……
I could see my first reply which i was talking abt the video…
I will look into this. I think comment system is messed up. No wonder number if comments are less.
What happens when you post the comments?
It looked fine today morning. Before, i used to click on the link in the notification mail that i used to receive but never was able to see any comments that were there. I also tried going on to the website directly rather clicking the link suspecting the link might be broken but still it never showed up recent comments posted and i doubt even after my comment was approved by HSB it always used to show up as awaiting for moderation. Anyways, it seemed like you fixed it and now able to access without issues. Well, i posted a video to the comment below this , are you able to see it? Coz i see that you replied back asking which video… but i see a space below my comment with YT video player on it.
Video players will not work.. post the link.
Actually i intended to post the link but when i paste the link in the comment box and posted it, it automatically turned to YT video player. I’m breaking the link here so that it wont automatically convert itself into a YT video player…
Another thing i noticed is, when i login to HSB profile it shows up my name on the top and then when i move on by clicking on any links in the blog i automatically get disconnected, Is this something you need to look into?
The below video can also help to some extent…. I find it useful as i did followed once and it worked out well.
Which video?
Awesome post! Especially deleting cookies!! I would have never know that! I realized that if you search flights for the same day different times using the same browser, prices goes up!! But never realized that it was the “cache and cookie” problem !!!