The sad truth is that there is no easy shortcut to booking cheap international tickets. As with any ecommerce activity, you need to hunt around for the best deals and alter you dates to nail the best air fares. But travellers willing to put in the effort will be rewarded with a major savings on their travel budget.
Book Early
This is especially relevant if you intend to travel during the holiday season or other peak dates. Air fares rises sharply during the final two weeks before departure, so you need to make your booking at least 3-4 weeks before flying. For international flights, you will want to book at least 3 to 6 months in advance.
Buy Late
This might seem contradictory to the above tip, however, in certain cases, you might be able to grab a really good last minute deal. This happens when the airlines have failed to fill their seats and are forced to sell the seats at a throwaway price. The best way to get notified by these flash sales is to signup for a newsletter or follow several online travel portals on social media.
Research
Regardless of how good a fare looks, never be in a hurry to book it without shopping around on other sites. Mix up your search by including the major travel portals, consolidators and meta search sites. An ideal search combo would Priceline, Airfarewatchdog, Travelocity.com, Kayak and Cheaptickets.com. This will give you a fair idea on the flight fare and the airliners that fly to your destination. Armed with this info, head over to the airliners website and check if they are offering a cheaper fare. Also, check if the airliners are running any promotions or special deals on the flight to your destination. If you feel the fares quoted is too high, don't be afraid to bide your time and wait a bit. Most sites also have a price alert feature where they will mail you when the price falls to what you are willing to pay. If you have a flexible itinerary and don't mind a bit of suspense, check out sites like LastMinuteTravel.com for some great deals to several destinations.
When to Book
This is the hardest part when it comes to booking cheap international flight tickets, and unfortunately, the most vital. You will need to know when to stop the hunt and make the final decision to book. Bing Travel is a good tool that offers fare prediction for most cities in the US. Just feed the site your destination and dates and it will tell whether to book now or wait. Kayak is another useful tool which gives you a history graphs for flight ticket prices between different cities. And keep in mind that most airliners publish special deals on Tuesdays, so if you are searching for a flight ticket on Monday, try to defer it for one more day.
Invest in an Air Pass
Several tourism boards offer their national airliners passes at discounted rates to increase the tourist volumes. If you intend to travel extensively within a country, consider investing in an Air Pass.
Nguyen An Tra My
Martin Wynn
