The Scoop On How To Save Money On Plane Tickets
It’s not news that a lot of times people who travel on the same flight pay different prices for plane tickets even though everyone on that flight is headed to the same destination. You definitely don’t want to be the sucker who pays the extra hundreds of dollars for a flight that some people even got for free. Well let’s fill you in on 9 ways to save money on plane tickets during your next vacation.
Sign up for a travel rewards program
This is a hack from personal experience, based on recommendations from a friend, one of our partytrailers signed up for the Chase credit card rewards program and ended up amassing 180,000 points. Half of which was used towards traveling to Colombia by “Business Class” for free. Well it’s not entirely free, since those “travel rewards” were earned spending money at different retail locations on the credit card he got from chase. The only difference is that this partytrailer was rewarded for all his expenditure with a return ticket to travel to a destination of his choice.
Use the ITA matrix software by Google
We have used this from personal experience and it is definitely one of the best travel fare saving tools on the Internet. All you have to do is fill out the dialog box for your “departing” and “arrival” airports, whether your flight is one-way or round trip, what month you intend to travel, your length of stay and so on. The software then generates a “calendar based table” with pricing data for travel for each day of the month. Please give the ITA google matrix a try
Clear your cache and browsing history after each flight search
We fell victim to this during our earlier days of travel before smarting up. Whenever we browse the internet for retail products, cookies are stored on in your browsers. This is done by travel retailers to monitor our browsing and spending habits. The retailers can in turn tailor products and prices to their target consumers thanks to the data collected by those cookies installed on your browser. To circumvent this tactic, go to your browser history, delete both your stored cookies, cache, and browsing history every time you want to search for a flight. The risk of not doing this is that airlines monitoring your browsing history could keep increasing the price for a flight you are researching repeatedly. They know you are most likely going to buy the ticket to that destination especially if you keep coming to their site to check for the same flight.
Book your ticket well in advance
From personal experience traveling, booking your plane ticket anywhere from a month to two months in advance is a good idea. However, a definite no-no if you can avoid it is a last minute flight. We have been in situations where we paid almost triple the average ticket price for last minute travel from Thailand to Hong Kong. If you are at a job, where you have a set schedule it is best to submit your vacation requests at the beginning of the year so that you can have enough time ahead to research ticket prices and buy your tickets.
Last minute upgrades
Here is the usual scenario; you book economy; you arrive at the airport; the airline is yet to fill all the seats in business or first class; you inquire to see if there is the possibility of an upgrade; they would rather sell a first class seat than leave it empty. You get an upgrade for a lot less than you would have if you bought a first class or business class ticket right off the bat.
Buy your ticket on the right day of the week.
(Tuesday 3pm eastern for U.S. readers)
We have never tried this internationally so we won’t tell you if it works or not. However in the United States, the gist is that Tuesday at 3pm eastern time is the best time to buy a local flight. Ticket prices vary depending on what time and day you decide to buy the ticket. Buying a ticket over the weekend tends to be more expensive. Also the day and time you decide to fly out affect the price you pay for your ticket. Deciding to take a red eye flight or flying during the week can reduce the amount you have to pay for a ticket immensely.
Use the right flight price search engine
Websites like Kayak, priceliine and so on seem to have the best deals. It is usually best to compare as many flight price search results as possible. While it might be laborious it would definitely be worth the extra dollars you have to spend on drinks, a meal, or a gift for a loved one from your destination of choice.
Never underestimate the power of the budget airlines
This from our experience works mostly in Europe and Asia. In fact if you book a flight far ahead enough with Air Asia (A Malaysian airline) you can get a flight ticket almost for free. In Europe, your best bet would be Ryanair, and Easyjet. These are airlines that are heavily discounted to help promote a more integrated E.U. The moral of the story here is that you get to fly for a lot cheaper if you use one of these airlines.
Sign up for a frequent flyer program and stick to it.
A lot of brands today live of consumer loyalty. Hence they are willing to bend over backwards for customers loyal to their brand. Research different airlines to see what rewards programs they have, find one that suits your lifestyle and sign and rack up points. Those points might come in handy for a free vacation or hotel stay someday. Note: Airlines are trying to clamp down on the free giveaways and instead want to reward VIP flyers, i.e. flyers who travel by first or business class, so proper research must go into finding the right frequent flyer program.
We hope our advice saves you some money the next time you travel. Till then stay safe and travel on!!
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