By Arun Chitnis
Airline tickets can be pretty expensive if you aren’t familiar with how airlines price those tickets and why. You see advertisements for cheap airline tickets all over the place. They saturate the Internet, television, and newspapers for good reason.
Nobody wants to pay $800 for an airline ticket when they can get something similar for half the price or less. You could book your flight tickets well in advance, choose crappy seats, or subject yourself to many hours worth of layovers at various airports.
1. Book Your Plane Tickets Well In Advance
Booking in advance is always a good way to save money and also guarantees your spot on that flight. Booking in advance is also one of the easiest ways to guarantee you can fly during the holidays.
If you hold out for cheaper tickets for too long, you might not be able to get on plane and be forced to loiter at the airport until another flight has an empty seat.
2. Choose Crappy Seats Or More Stopovers
Crappy seats will always knock a few bucks off of an airline ticket. Nobody wants to sit right by the bathroom in the middle of the aisle. This particular seat usually has a reduced rate if you are flying alone or with a friend but in groups you might get full price.
Flying coach is also a great way to save money. You don’t really need to be in business class do you? Take both of these and agree to sit a couple hours at each airport between transfers and you can cut the price of your airline tickets in half.
It’s full price to go from A to B but if you make 3 stops on the way, it gets much cheaper. Just bring along some form of entertainment and you will make it just fine.
3. Compare Flight Ticket Prices Online
Cheap airline tickets have become a business all their own with fare comparison sites, auctions, and bidding sites. Travel agents used to have to do most of the footwork for us but with most people able to access the Internet, it’s just as easy to do it yourself.
Fare comparison sites are usually the first stop for people looking to buy cheap airline tickets. These sites check prices from many different companies that offer the flight you are looking for.
This will give you a ton of options if you are traveling from a large city to another large city but if you are traveling somewhere fairly small, you might not have many options at all.
Auction sites frequently offer cheap airline tickets that are almost too good to be true. This is often because the person who first bought the tickets had a change of plans, or because the airline or travel site is having a promotion.
4. Be Flexible About Flight Dates And Airports
To get better results and cheaper tickets, you can change the arrival and departure dates by a day or two to see if the prices go down. You can also include airports in nearby cities. Though inconvenient, you can save quite a bit of money by skipping your local airport and using one in a larger city nearby.
Be flexible about your departure dates to get the cheapest rates
5. Check For Airline Ticket Package Deals
Before you agree to buy any airline tickets, it never hurts to look around and see if there are any package deals that are a good bargain. A package deal is when you not only get your airline tickets but you could even get a free hotel room for a day thrown in, or discounts to see the local attractions.
Since you’re going there anyway, it never hurts to have some options by way of entertainment or lodging. Package deals come in all shapes and sizes and can be influenced by many things.
They are most commonly associated with vacations and can include anything from coupons to VIP passes. If a new resort opens, they may offer cheap airline tickets to help bring in customers.
For example, Las Vegas builds amazing hotels and rides all the time and one way to promote a new hotel or an attraction is to include it in some kind of package deal.
If you were going to fly there and stay at the MGM Grand at regular price but the Luxor will give you a free Hoover Dam tour included in a package deal, many people will opt for the Luxor.
6. Get Discounts On Group Bookings
Another type of package deal can happen if you are buying many tickets at once. You might be in charge of this for a business or just have a very large family but often you can get a group package deal.
Airlines like groups because they spend money in the airport and in the plane and if they have a good experience, they will likely tell someone about it. This all leads to greater revenue in the long run even if the airline loses a little profit at first.
There are all kinds of ways you can save money when the time comes to buy your airline tickets. Sure, not every option is appealing, but once you get where you’re going, you’ll be glad it was so cheap to get there.
© Arun Chitnis is a professional content and copywriter, proof-reader and editor. He wields his pen on a diverse range of topics, but his primary areas of interest are medical and lifestyle issues, family dynamics, parenting, natural health, home improvement, real estate, humor and fiction.
This article may be reprinted with the complete author bio and a live link back to http://www.goa-beach.com
Travel Resources:
FREE Budget Travel Report: Save 80% To 100% On Your Next Vacation – Get 15 powerful Budget Travel tips that can easily save you anywhere from 50% to over 80% off your flights! Learn how to travel the world and have incredible adventures, and pay just a fraction of the regular prices on airline tickets, vacation packages, hotel rooms, cruises and more.
Insider Secrets to Cheap Flights: Downsized Agent Reveals All – All the essentials on how to get extremely cheap flights, tell you the scams to avoid and reveal all of the biggest money saving and confidential insider secrets the airlines have threatened me to keep silent about.
Rock Bottom Airfares – The best guide available about flying cheap. Imagine flying on your next vacation or trip and saving 25%, 40% or even 70% on the airline tickets. Travel Agency owner reveals airline industry secrets how to buy airline tickets at lowest price.
How To Find Cheap Airfares
Photo source Julie0815
