Everyone knows that air ticket can cost a great sum, especially when you are planning to travel far. That’s why it’s important for us to learn how to find cheap flight tickets to save ourselves money. In this post, I’m going to share with you the tips I always use during flight booking.
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How to Find Cheap Flight Tickets – Try to Avoid Peak Period
Peak period can be a nightmare for travelers. Not only does everything’s price go up (air flight, accommodation, car rental etc) during that time, you are also going to see a lot of crowd. If the countries you are going to visit do not have obvious seasonal difference, try to avoid school holiday. You should also avoid peak holiday period such as Christmas, New Year, and Chinese New Year etc.
However, if you definitely have to go during these periods, it’s advisable that you plan early. Do note that planning early isn’t equal to booking early. To plan ahead is to give you ample time to monitor ticket price, and book your flight when the tickets go on sale.
How to Find Cheap Flight Tickets – Book 7 Weeks in Advance
According to Sky Scanner, one of the comprehensive flight search engines, the best time to book for short haul flight is 7 weeks (around 2 months) in advance. Whereas you need to look around 18 weeks (around 4 months) in advance for long haul destinations.
Remember, airline fares will keep rising but there is a sweet spot when the airlines begin to either lower or increase fares based on demand. Don’t wait until the last second but neither book far, far in advance.
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How to Find Cheap Flight Tickets – Sign up for Email Alerts
Different airlines always inform their loyal customers about ticket sale via newsletter. That’s why you should sign up for their mailing-list and be notified immediately when they roll out great flight deals. Often, when airline companies have too many vacancy, they will roll out last minute ticket sale via newsletter. Be sure to sign up to the cheap flight deal!
How to Find Cheap Flight Tickets – Shop for flights on Tuesday afternoon
There is a theory that Tuesday is the best day to go looking for cheap flight. By this point most airlines will know if their weekend flights are fully booked. If they still have a lot of empty seats, this is when they will slash the prices and tell their subscribers. Keep your eyes peeled on Tuesday afternoon!
How to Find Cheap Flight Tickets – Use Search Engine
Although there are a lot of flight search engines available in the market, not all of them are built equal.
Some of them only search for major commercial airline such as ITA Matrix (no budget carrier), while some even include a comprehensive list of budget airlines worldwide such as Dohob, Sky Scanner and Momondo. If you are going for budget airlines, do check them out.
That’s another reason to check multiple booking sites. You might find a cheaper price for the same flight elsewhere!
I personally like Dohob the most as it’s a very user-friendly search engine. The interface is clean and straight-forward, enabling you to spot the cheap flight deal right away. Moreover, Dohob offers very competitive prices too!
Lastly, you might want to compare the prices of the same flight from those search engines with the airline’s official website. Most of the time, the prices are the same, but sometimes you may observe a price difference, so book whichever is cheaper.
Comment below if you find the tips useful or have other tips to share!
Finding cheap flights really is the holy grail of travel. I also like the Flight Deal and Scott’s Cheap Flights.
Great thanks for the tips!
Useful tips, specially the fact that we’ve heard about the magic of booking on Tuesdays afternoon. However finding a cheap flight deal is like a vast ocean where people have found lots of tricks to sail around. We also look at sites like Secret Flying and Travel Pirates (in case you were not aware, do check them out 😉 )
That’s great! Thanks for sharing. I will check the two out 🙂
great tips fpr rookie travellers here, I start looking as far out as possible to give plenty of time to find the best prices
Yeah far out gives you a lot more advantage!
Good tips. I know me and few other people tell those looking for cheap fares this all the time.
Thank you! Glad you find it useful 🙂
Very useful suggestions! Email alerts are especially good if you want to stay up to date with the most recent deals!
Email alerts are indeed very useful!