While planning a trip, time plays a major role. We prefer traveling by airplanes to save time and travel more. Booking an air ticket can be heavy on your pockets. For me, it was a stressful task until I mastered some tips required for booking cheap flights. Here are those tips, I learned from experiences. Consider using these tips before booking your air ticket.
1. The importance of booking air tickets at the right time
happy journey starts with booking your flight at the right time. We all go through the tiresome process of ticket booking and repeated searches on several ticket booking websites for the best pricing. We have to worry about the fluctuating prices of air tickets. This fluctuating price can disturb our travel budget too. While booking an air ticket, time is the essence. Booking our air ticket at right can save us from this tiresome process.
2. My booking strategy
There are several websites providing flight booking services. It was confusing for me to choose the best one. I had two options for booking my tickets. Either I prefer direct booking or choose any online travel agency. I did an airfare comparison on several websites. I prefer booking my tickets from the service provider’s online counter. Sometimes, I prefer booking through travel websites.
3. Booking air tickets: The starting point of travel Planning
There are so many travel websites selling air tickets at different airfare. Why every traveler has to experience the stress of checking several travel websites. Monitoring the fluctuating prices creates a disturbance in our personal and professional life.
On average, you can buy your air tickets 11 months before. But it’s not like, you will be getting any early bird deal if you book 11 months before. Book your tickets after an understanding of the pricing pattern followed by Airlines.
4. An understanding of Pricing Pattern:
There is a pattern in pricing, that is: Staring off with high prices, coming down till a few weeks before the date and steep increase in the last 14 days.
Before 11 – 7 months :
These bookings can be known as early bird bookings, however other than any special offers, there are no benefits in booking these tickets. Generally, the prices are higher in these days. You can only expect to get the cheap air tickets if there is some promotional offer running.
The only benefit of booking tickets in this duration is that you can get the full choice of flight options and better seat selection.
Booking before 3 to 6 months
Want to plan your journey with a peaceful mind, get all things done on time and without trouble. Then you must plan and book your air tickets in this duration. You can get more flight options, seat selection options. You can also get cheaper deals than in the “early birds bookings” period.
Booking between approximately 3 weeks – 3 months
This duration is the best time frame to get the cheapest deals ( other than offers). Just keep an eye on the fares during these 90 days, as they fluctuate a lot. Also, you can find decent offers on airfares easily during these days. I call it, “relaxed zone”
Booking before 14-20 days ( 2-3 weeks )
In cases of popular destinations, in this time frame, there are slim chances of getting a good deal on airfares. The flights get expensive, the choice of seats is less and you have all chances to get worried about making amendments to your travel plan.
Between 0-13 days ( last 2 weeks )
You have all your rights to get frustrated while searching for air tickets at reasonable airfares. If you are booking your tickets within 7 days of departure, you need to pay more than what you have had paid during the “relaxed zone” period. Also, you’ll probably have limited choices for flight times and seats.
5. Last-minute bookings for immediate travels
It has always been an interesting experience while booking air travel tickets directly at the airport on the day of travel and just before the time of travel.
It has always been a bit of luck here in terms of the availability of tickets and airfares.
Sometimes, you can easily grab a ticket at 60-70% of the normal price, and some time you need to pay for your need of 11th hour.
If you are lucky, you may find the Aviation companies selling tickets on highly discounted prices just before the time of departure.
6. Travel websites I prefer for my bookings:
On these websites, the fare may vary from site to site. We recommend you to be careful while booking your flight ticket. Making a comparison of fare on these websites always helps in saving money on each booking.
MakeMy Trip – MakeMy Trip is my first preference while searching for air flights and ticket availability.
Travelocity – Travelocity with its easy to use interface is used by travelers to book their tickets quickly.
Expedia – Expedia is a travel agency that operates online through its website and mobile app. It provides a metasearch engine for airline tickets and booking.
CheapOair – CheapOair with its Price Match Promise ensure that traveler can book his tickets at the lowest rate.
Google Flights – Google a well known established trusted company that provides services of purchasing an online flight booking of airline tickets through third-party suppliers.
7. Make your searches in incognito mode
We often observe that after making a few searches in our web browser, the flight price gets changed. Based on the cookies in our browser, flight prices keep on increasing when a particular route is repeatedly searched. I keep my searches top secret by using incognito mode for searching the desired flight.
8. Mark the cheapest day in your calendar
My relatives used to tell me that weekend prices are higher than prices on weekdays. I have not observed any definite theory about change in prices based on days. Sometimes weekends offer a better price than weekdays. Sometimes weekend prices touch the sky. Here, I use a search engine to get flight prices for a whole month. I mark the cheapest days of my route on my calendar.
9. Last Call to book the flight
Once I complete my researches from travel websites. I set my mind to use one medium to book the flight. We recommend you to compare the price you have for booking the ticket with other sources. It will help you to be sure that you are getting the best flight deal.
I will be glad when these tips will help you to save the money on ticket booking. Chances are you have a different strategy on getting the cheapest flights across India? if I have missed one, Comment below.
