You may have experienced the repeated and tiresome searching while looking for cheap flight tickets. The prices keep fluctuating every now and then, and it often becomes difficult to find a platform or search engine to book the cheapest flight to a specific destination. Here are some of the tips that will help you save your money and time while booking your next airline ticket.
10 Tips: How to book cheap airline tickets
- Keep the Searches Top Secret: You might have noticed a few times that the ticket price changes if you keep searching it in the web browser. Well, the price increases if you search a particular route repeatedly based on the cookies in the browser. That’s because the website tries to convince you to book the ticket before the price gets even higher. So, it is better to search in private browsing mode or simply in incognito mode for seeing the lowest ticket prices.
You can enable incognito in Chrome by hitting “Command, Shift and N”. And for Internet Explorer, you can hit “Command, Shift and P”. This will lead you to a new browser window where prices won’t fluctuate, and your information will also be safe. Also, don’t forget to close the incognito windows after searching once. That’s a way for you to travel to any destination at minimum price. - Look for the Cheapest Day to Fly: There are many theories about booking a flight ticket on Tuesday just because it will save you some money, but that’s not actually true. There is no such day as flying cheaply to a destination. However, leaving on a weekday is cheaper than usual, but not always. You will have to take a look at the prices for a whole month for seeing whether there is any such day to fly cheaply or not. Here’s how you can do it:
a) Open the website of the airline on your PC or download their app on your phone.
b) Type your arrival and departure cities there.
c) Select “one-way” and then click on “Depart”. However, don’t mention a date there since you need to look for the whole month. So, click on “Whole Month” and then on “Cheapest Month” in order to go through all the dates for finding the cheapest.
d) After that, click “Search Flights” and choose the one that suits you the most.
But this procedure is for a PC. If you have downloaded the app, click on the departure date before changing the view to “Chart”. Start swiping right and left, and you will end up finding the cheapest date. Repeat the same steps for booking a return flight also. You can book a two-way ticket as well in one go, but the steps mentioned above will help you find either of these with ease.
Just find a website that provides you with map views as well so that you may book the ticket and track the airport’s location at the same time.
3. Check Sale Fares and Airline Error: At times, the airlines make mistakes while posting their fares which leads to hilarious discounts, resulting in endless bookings. This may happen due to multiple reasons, including human error, technical glitch or currency conversion. If you understand the scenario and know how to find those discounted fares, you can save yourself a lot of money. Multiple websites are available for tracking such errors and provide you with flight deals daily. All you need is to create your account and let them know about your departure airport, and you will start receiving discounted deals from them.
So, even if it is the airline’s error, it can benefit you in a number of ways if you know a bit about such glitches. It can surely save you hundreds of dollars for a single ticket.
4. Start Booking Connecting Flights by Yourself: Suppose you have to travel to a destination which involves a transfer, for example, from Pakistan to Canada, which involves Pakistan to Germany, then Germany to Canada. In that case, it will be cheaper if you book these two flights separately by yourself. You need to add one more destination to this trip. But don’t book flights which have hours of difference in their timing. This is suitable for people who want to travel to a destination and stay there for some days to enjoy—book connecting flights from two different airlines to offer yourself some discount.
First of all, complete your research about whether the airline you are travelling with is budget friendly or not. And whether you will be able to find another flight from that midpoint. Booking 2 or 3 connecting flights can save you from paying a hefty amount which is what you may wish for. Booking multi-day layovers will also allow you to explore two destinations for the price of one. It is surely better to spend 20 hours exploring the city instead of sitting at the airport without any reason. So, take all the factors into account and then decide whether this method is suitable or not.
5. Look for the Cheapest Destinations to Fly: There are two situations in which someone looks for the cheapest flight tickets; one is whether they have to go to a place and they just want to find a more affordable way to go, and the other one is to find a destination to fly to but a cheaper one. And the latter is easy to find in this case since there are multiple spots you can look for to travel to. Just find a tool or a site, select the departure date and city there and see whether it is helping you save some bucks or not. Also, you can sort the countries out by their ticket prices which is an unusual but effective way of finding and booking a cheap flight ticket.
6. Consider “Hidden City Ticketing”: Travelers discovered this trick long time ago called as “Hidden City” Flights. It is a way of finding cheaper tickets by booking a “connecting flight” to a destination that is beyond yours. And ending your journey at the layover point. This is a risky option for sure and you may have to take the following factors into account:
• You must only have carry-on luggage or else, the checking of your luggage will make it reach the final destination.
• They may not allow you to go off the plane.
• If airlines get an idea that you haven’t taken your connection, you may have to face the music.
This “hidden city ticketing ” option isn’t safe and is no less than a hack. That’s why most professionals don’t recommend to go for it. However, if you succeed in it, you will end up saving yourself a hefty amount.
7. Use Local Airlines to Travel! You may think of using tools or search engines to travel to a destination at a lesser price, but the fact is that such tools don’t include local airlines that are working at a smaller scale. This happens mostly with routes that are less booked. If your destination is an obscure place such as a hilly area, see if there exists any local airline. You will indeed find one, but that’s not the part of search engines just because it operates in remote regions.
After finding such an airline, you will see discounted offers also, which are not a part of search engines either. So, it is better to check any such local airline which most people don’t know about because that is what can help you save some amount.
8. Mix & Match the Airlines: This option is pretty similar to the one we mentioned above, booking the connecting airlines. Look for sites that mix & match the airlines for finding the lowest price. For example, you may want to go to Italy from the USA. If you use a typical search engine, it will show a single route, the direct one, that too with one or two airlines of the same kind. However, mixing & matching the airlines may offer you the longer route, but it will save you a few hundred dollars on this ticket.
It is not recommended to book the whole trip with different airlines. For example, if one of your flights is delayed, you will miss the connecting flight also. The reason is that there is no such association between the airlines regarding delays or cancellations. So, if you miss one, the next flight won’t be rescheduled. And if you want to, you will have to pay again. So, this short-term benefit may become a long-term loss also.
Some sites offer guarantees in this regard that if you miss one flight or it gets delayed, your connecting flight will be rescheduled for free. Or they will make you travel on the next flight. So, it depends on your research about the tools to understand how mix & match works. Or else, you may not get what you are looking for.
9. Earn Points and Fly for Free: The cheapest price you can pay to go to a destination is to pay nothing, and that is possible with points only. If you don’t have them, don’t worry, you can earn them. Just sign up for a “Travel Rewards Credit Card”, and you will get bonus points merely by spending a small amount. The points are enough to travel from one place to another. You may choose a specific airline to sign up for “airline rewards”. Or you can go for a “Travel Rewards Card” that will let you earn points on different airlines.
Once you open your account, you can earn almost 60k points merely by spending $4000. These points are equal to $750, which is enough to book an international flight ticket. Not like this card is to book plane tickets only, you can use it while shopping and in your daily routine also. This will increase your chances of winning and earning more points, and you may end up booking a trip every month with it. So, this is the cheapest and one of the most suitable ways to book a ticket.
10. Buy Tickets in Bulk: You will surely get more value on the tickets if you buy them in bulk. But that will work only if you have bought them from a single airline. For example, buying a return ticket from LA to London is cheaper than buying two one-way tickets. You can benefit from it on multi-city flights, mainly if you are a regular traveler.
Another way of doing it is to buy “Regional Passes”. These special tickets will allow you to travel around the world at a discounted price. Also, at times, separately-booked ticked are cheaper. You may use various sites also in this regard to see which airline is offering cheap regional passes so that you may visit a continent or country for lesser price than usual.
Before booking a flight ticket to any destination, don’t forget to see if the price is less or more if you pay in another currency. The airlines make you pay in that country’s currency, but that’s not always the case. And this may also save you some amount. However, you can try any of the methods mentioned above, and it will surely work; hidden city ticketing is an exception because it is risky. All in all, complete your research and take into account all the factors. That’s the only way for you to save some big bucks every time you fly.
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