The major element that differentiates frequent travellers from newbies is the amount of time the former spends researching airfares. The reasons for this is fairly simple – frequent travellers know when to book a flight to ensure they receive the best possible price.
Booking Too Early :- Like most things, there is a science and logic behind airline ticket booking – the time, the day and the month has a massive weightage in determining the price of the ticket. The most common mistakes people make while booking flight tickets is booking too early. Unless you are planning to fly during high demand days like Christmas, your best chance of snagging a cheap flight ticket is booking 45 days before departure for domestic tickets and 60 days for international tickets.
Outside of the 45 days window, the chances of airliners dropping the price on an air ticket is nearly zero. Airliners go through millions of data points before setting their prices for a specific flight. They analyze how many people flew on Flight 502 to Kuala Lumpur in November for the last 5 years before setting the price on the ticket for this year.
If you book your airline ticket too early, you will pay a higher fare 90% of the time, and if the fare drops you won't be in a position to take advantage of the lower fee as the rebooking fee will negate any savings.
Choose the Day :- Once you are in the prime booking window dates, the next step is to figure out the best day to book your flight ticket. Midweek is considered to the best time to find cheap air tickets as there is usually a surplus of empty seats which the airlines will be try to sell for a lower price.
Choose the Time :- After deciding the day of travel you are one step closer to making a cheap airline ticket booking. The next step is deciding the time of travel. Millions of travel experts recommend booking your flight ticket on Wednesday 1 am. The reason is fairly simple. Airlines publish their cheap flight tickets on Sunday and Monday evening. There will be a rush to grab these seats and at midnight on Tuesday, all the discount flight tickets that were not purchased come flooding back to the airline systems. Unfortunately, you won't be able to do this online, you will have to call up an executive at the airliners.
Clear your Cookies :- Airliners are increasingly tracking your online behaviour and there have been instances of certain companies jacking up the prices for frequently searched routes. Your best bet to get around this is to either use a different computer for each search or clear your cookies before every search.
Martin Wynn
