How to Buy Cheap Airline Tickets

Traveling, especially with a family, can be so expensive. That's why it's essential to find cheap airline tickets every time you travel. There are several tricks to tracking down the cheapest airline tickets. You just have to know how the airlines operate in order to find airfare deals. Follows these steps to land discount airline tickets and have more spending money the next time you travel!

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

1. 

   Start your search for cheap airline tickets early. If possible book your flight at least a month before you want to travel. With the exception of last minute tickets, the most expensive airline tickets are sold within 14 days of the flight.

2. 

   When planning your trip try to be as flexible as possible with your travel dates. Cheap airline tickets are most often found for flights departing on Tuesday and Wednesday. Sometimes you can even find discount tickets for Saturday travel. Stay away from traveling on Monday and Friday if you can. They are two of the more expensive travel days especially on routes that are popular with business travelers such as Los Angeles to New York or New York to Chicago.

3. 

   Cheap airline tickets are often found on flights that are at off-peak hours, especially red-eyes. If you're willing to leave at midnight and arrive at 6 am you'll have a better chance of finding discount airfare.

4. 

   You should also consider flying into an alternative airport. Not all airlines fly into every major airport, but they may fly into an airport that's not too far away. If you're willing to drive an hour to get to your final destination you may be able to save hundreds of dollars on airfare. For a long time Southwest didn't fly into Philadelphia International, but the airline did service Baltimore-Washington. Since Southwest is a discount carrier, it drove the prices down on the majority of other airlines that fly into BWI. This meant it was often significantly cheaper to fly out of BWI, than out of Philadelphia on ANY airline. In order to take advantage of the discount airline tickets, travelers had to be willing to drive the extra 90 minutes to get to BWI.

5. 

   Airlines release discount airfare at midnight on Wednesday. That means you're likely to find the best deal on airfare if you're willing to burn the midnight oil one Wednesday and book a flight between midnight and 5am. Check the airlines' websites as well as the travel search engines they update around the same time.

6. Like anything, it's best to shop around to find the cheapest airline tickets. Airlines divide the available seats on a flight into different price classes. There may be only be five $100 seats available on the flight you want to book. Two different travel search engines or vendors may have purchased the $100 seats to resell at $150. Of course you never know which search engines or travel agents they are, or how many they have, so you need to shop around to find the best airfare deals.

7. If you're traveling with a family you may have better luck finding discount airline tickets if you book in two or three separate transactions. Let's say you have a family of five that you need to purchase airline tickets for. If you search for five seats on a search engine like expedia.com you may only find airline tickets priced around $400 each ($2000 just on airfare is a lot!!!). But let's say you change the number to two passengers. Now you have a better chance of finding cheap airline tickets (for the reason explained in Step 6). There's no reason you can't book a large party in separate transactions, through different vendors, and still be on the same flight.

8. You have a better chance of finding cheap airline tickets if you package airfare, hotel and a rental car together. Booking a package deal will usually get you a significantly discounted rate on all three. Be sure to check if it's cheaper to get the rental car and fly into a smaller or more out-of-the-way airport, than it is to forego the rental and fly into the more convenient airline.

9. Many carriers offer discount airline tickets to members of the military, senior citizens and students so be sure to ask for a discount when you book your flight.

Tips & Warnings

• If you're traveling for the holidays it's easier to find cheap airline tickets if you're willing to travel on the major holiday.

Resources

• How to Buy Travel Insurance

[rayyan]

on 9/3/2009 I SELL CHEAP AIRLINE TICKETS 75% DISCOUNT OR SOMETIMES 60%!!! BEST DEALS IF ANYBODY NEEDS CONTACT ME [e-mail] or [e-mail]

[cwengre]

on 2/19/2009 Good Tip!!!

[NuttyMomma]

on 2/11/2009 Great tips!!! we all need a bargain these days. 5*