If you go to Google, Google does the search for you if you type keywords like ‘cheap airlines’ or ‘cheap flights’ as well as by using the airport of origin and destination in your query. This is by the way the right method of searching a flight; always include those in your search.
As far as many travelers agreed and based on experience, flight prices are not fixed for one price alone. One airline seat could be sold for $500 or it can be offered as low as $200 in an unpredictable time.
When booking a flight online, flight prices may vary according to the time and days, when was the booking is carried out. Sometimes, when booking a flight on Wednesdays and Fridays, a lot of cheapest flights will be shown by most travel sites.
One way to find cheapest flights online for international destination is when there are promos given by the airlines or sometimes by the travel agent. If you can avail any of this, you would certainly pay less than the normal price, therefore saving some money on your travel.
But to find cheapest international flights online, there are some simple guidelines to follow. In an article from MailOnline entitled “How to Outsmart Airlines to find Cheapest Flights” written by Kris Kitching, there are some strategies or let us say “basic guidelines” to find cheapest flights, which are applicable for either domestic or international booking. Some of those guidelines are as follows:
Book at least eight weeks in advance
For domestic or international flights, it is always advisable to book a flight ahead of time. Based on study conducted by Expedia, 50 to 100 days before travel could be enough to find the possible cheapest rate. That is almost equal to 2-3 months in advance.
For international destination, it was suggested that booking in advance of 150 to 225 days is the most effective time span to find the best price to save money on flights. That report was released by Airlines Reporting Corporation. During this period, best deals are usually found on 171th day according to their study.
CheapAir also suggested that the most appropriate time to book a flight is between 29 and 104 days before the desired flight schedule. It is also suggested that it is best to get connected with the airlines to receive some alert if they have some future offers. But most of the airlines will only inform the public in just few weeks before the flight date. Some online travel companies like Kayak blast out a message to their clients if their price on flights drops.
Book on Sundays or Tuesdays
By calendar monitoring, it was also found out that during Sundays and Tuesdays, whether domestic or international flights, prices usually drop. This is another report by the ARC in relation to their study how to find cheapest flights. It was noticed that sales on flights from online travel companies or those airline partners are sold at very low prices during Sundays and having days after Monday as days with the greatest numbers of booking done.
If you are frequent traveler, it is however suggested to monitor online flight prices in each day within a week because it has been known that flight prices always fluctuates.
However, according to study conducted by FareCompare, the best day to book a flight is Wednesday. The time is early in the morning or sometimes late at night. Those who can manage to sleep during the flight can benefit on it.FareCompare is one of the best providers of cheapest international and domestic flights online. Previously, they studied hundreds of flights from different online travel companies in Canada and US.
Consider Flight with Stopover
It has been known to many travelers that direct flights are really much expensive than flights with stopovers. This is an issue between money and time. If time is more valuable during travel, then this idea is not applicable. But if the need to save money is much necessary than saving time, then, this might be the best choice. Most travelers hate the thought of having to switch planes or stop at an airport and wait for long hours, waiting for the next flight with other airlines. Sometimes it takes 20 hours to wait before you can embark with you connecting flight. Imagine the time wasted if you are the one in this case.
One of my experiences during travel with stopover that may support the statement above happened last April 2015. That was when I traveled from Philippines going back to Oman and have to stay for 8 hours in Dubai Airport, and wait for my connecting flight to Oman at 3am in the morning via Flydubai.
One woman who happened to be a Filipina was also waiting for her connecting flight to Qatar at 11am on the following day. She said, she was there for almost 6 hours. She have to wait for 12 hours more, since I saw her sitting on the floor waiting for her connecting flight to open.
The worst thing she ever told was, her flight has two stopovers, from Philippines to Malaysia, and from Malaysia to Dubai, before she can finally fly to Qatar as her final destination. She said, her flight was arranged by her employment agency in Philippines to save some amount.
This means, via stopovers, flight could become cheaper, but be sure that you are ready to handle the boredom of long waiting hours in some stopovers. So if you hate stopovers, don’t look for much cheaper flights. If you do however, choose stopovers of less than 4 hrs.
There are many more tips to find cheapest flights when booking a flight online which I have not included in this article, to access some of those, just follow the following post.
Book cheapest flight Using the Best Flight Search Engine Today
