Tips on Finding Cheap Airfare

If you’re traveling on a budget or need to travel to a lot of different places, the airfare is probably the biggest chunk out of your budget. With fuel costs ever rising and available flights disappearing, you’ll need to be crafty about when you buy your tickets and where you buy your tickets.

Airfare and Timing

Buying your plane tickets is about timing most of the time. You can’t expect to find the cheapest airfare at the last minute, especially if it’s during a popular flight time or in peak season. For a cheaper flight, choose an unpopular flight time, such as anything after 8:00 pm. You’ll also find that buying online tends to be cheaper, since most airlines charge a fee for ordering your tickets over the phone and speaking with a sales representative.

Sometimes Comparisons Do Matter

If you aren’t comparing flight costs between vendors, you’re not the sharpest tool in the shed. Even if you get better frequent flyer miles from one airline over another, if you crunch the numbers, you might find you’re earning about $20 versus getting about $100 or more in savings by shopping around. Sometimes you can even negotiate a better price, like with PriceLine.com, where you can actually bid on a flight.

Non-stop Over One-Stop

If you prefer not to make any stops during your flight, this is not going to lower your price. You need to be willing to make one or two stop overs in order to cut down the cost of your airfare. Worst-case scenario you get to have lunch in a city you’ve never been to before.

Package Deals Are a Crap Shoot

Vacation packages of flight + hotel packages can be a crap shoot sometimes, but if you do some research and find that booking your hotel with your flight will cut about $50 from the overall budget, that would be a good savings. If you are couch surfing while traveling, consider a package that includes a car rental instead – it might help.