Figuring out how to save money booking flights is worth the effort.
If you’ve got a little bit of time and a desire to save money, then you’ll appreciate learning how to save money booking flights. The following is a list of some effective strategies and tips for saving money on your next airplane ticket.
Avoid Nonstop Flights
Direct flights are convenient and less stressful, but they are normally more expensive than indirect flights. If you have the ability to take on additional travel time, look for tickets that are not direct flights and have at least one stopover. This can result in cheaper overall plane tickets. Of course, the drawback to this technique is that it adds a significant amount of time to the length of the trip. This is due to the fact that extra time is necessary at the stopover to account for a delayed arrival on the first leg of the trip.
Sign Up for Airlines’ Frequent Flier Programs
If you travel a lot, this is a no brainer because you might as well get frequent flier miles for purchases you are going to make anyways. And after enough time, you can redeem these frequent flier miles for discounted or free plane tickets
Use a Rewards Credit Card
There are many credit cards available that provide rewards to its users. Many of these benefits include cash back. But another common reward is frequent flier miles. Assuming a credit card user intends to use any credit card rewards on plane tickets, then these frequent flier credit cards provide more rewards than cash back cards.
To maximize frequent flier credit card rewards even more, users can look out for special promotions, especially when opening a new card. These motions often include thousands of bonus miles if a certain amount of purchases take place within the first few months of opening the card.
Do Long-Term Research
There are peak times for purchasing tickets, but it’s hard to know what they are, because many airline companies have their own internal policies as to what the peak and off-peak times will be. Therefore, prospective travelers need to do their own research to find out what the peak and off-peak times are. This requires them to look online at airline ticket websites and keep track every day what the cost of each ticket it. After a few weeks, they’ll notice a pattern and be able to figure out when the best time of the week or month is to fly.
Book the Flight at the Right Time
Buying plane tickets at the last minute is almost guaranteed to result in paying the highest price for a ticket. But buying the ticket well in advance can result in higher prices, too. As a general rule, the sweet spot for buying a ticket in advance is between 40 and 100 days.
Have Flexible Departure Times
Naturally, people prefer not to have to board a plane in the middle of the night. As a result, these plane tickets are usually cheaper than one leaving in the middle of the day. If you’re willing to travel at unusual times or in the middle of the night, you can probably save a fair amount of money on your plane tickets.
Look for Price Matching
Some airlines promise to match lower prices, even their own. For example, if you buy a plane ticket for $400 from Airline A, but several days later, those same tickets now cost $250, some airlines will pay back the difference, less an administrative fee. The exact rules and policies will vary, depending on the airline. Also, the difference the airline pays back won’t necessarily be with cash, but may be with flight vouchers.
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