Have you ever bought a plane ticket only to find it much cheaper a week later? As much as you curse yourself for buying an expensive ticket, there is no going back. Buying cheap airplane tickets is an art, and some even make a living out of it.
If you have ever been told that you should get the ticket 30 or 115 days before the flight you deserve to know the truth behind it. This is coming from Jonathan Weinberg, an expert who worked as an airfare analyst at AirfareWatchDog.com: “I can tell you that there is no best time to buy airline tickets.”
You can purchase a plane ticket about 11 months prior to the flight, and the day to get the best ticket price can be any day from then on, including the day of the trip. Websites like AirfareWatchDog can be a big help to get you the best travel deals when the airlines offer unadvertised sneak sales.
Some studies suggest you get the ticket 30 or 90 or 150 days before the flight but that is based only on past data, but the airlines do not price their tickets based on that data. If 70 percent of millions of tickets have their cheapest rates fall between say 30 to 90 days before the flight, it will not stand true at all times. If you want to buy the cheapest ticket, you need to know more about the amount of least fare than the time to get it.
Search for the flight you need at several points throughout the year; this will tell you how low the ticket can possibly get. Then keep a check on the prices paired with the dates you want, and then purchase the ticket whenever it gets close to the lowest price. If you are lucky enough, you might find a sale that gets you an even lower price than the one you thought.
The most important thing to know while buying a plane ticket is what the best price is, and you are good to go.
We do have a few tips and tricks that experts and frequent travellers recommend:
- Take early morning flights; they are usually the cheapest.
- Airlines often drop fares right before the flights to fill in the empty seats. So taking last minute flights could be cheaper.
- Do not stick to one airline. Mix and match as some airlines could be better for outbound flights and some for the return. Stay informed.
- If you are a frequent flier, become a member of the airline’s frequent-flier program to get the perks.
- If possible, be flexible with your flights, and hop on whenever there is a good deal.
- Search on multiple websites like Expedia, Travelocity, Orbitz for booking and Kayak, AirfareWatchdog, Yapta and Hipmunk to get good deals.
- When booking your tickets online, go incognito or remove your browsing history because the websites use browser cookies to raise the prices as many times as you check.
