Gone are the days of wandering into a travel agent to book your holiday for you. We now have a wealth of resources right at our finger tips and we are all quickly becoming our very own travel agent. If you are new to the self-planning-holiday scene, finding out exactly where to begin can be a little daunting. So with this in mind, here are 11 key factors I consider when hunting for the cheapest flights. The following tips will save you thousands of dollars and make that dream holiday a reality. So without further ado I give you my top 11 travel hacks to save you oodles of cash on flights.
1. Never use a travel agent. EVER.
You never, ever save money by using a travel agent. Not only do you spend more, but it has been my own personal experience that agents have their own agenda when booking your travel. The longest and most expensive flight itineraries I have ever had have always come from an agent. The itineraries I have had booked for me by well-established travel agencies have never looked after my best interest (both time and money wise) and instead have left me with excessive days of travel for a greater cost. My biggest regret as a traveler is that I didn’t have more faith in my ability to organize my own flights much earlier on.
2. Purchase your flight 47 days before your departure
According to cheapair.com, this is the cheapest time to purchase a flight; this was determined after looking through the data from billions of flights over the course of a year. I have done some further reading on the subject –yes I know, flight geek – and basically, it seems the reasoning behind it is that airline computers aren’t programmed to generate any sort of flight deals before this 45-47 day window. The lesson here: don’t book any further in advance than 47 days (6 weeks) if you want the cheapest flights.
3. Find cheapest direct flights
Now that you have given travel agents the boot, it’s time to do your own flight research and you can in fact search the whole month to obtain the cheapest day to fly. This will give you the cheapest directflights available. However, once I find a direct flight that I am happy with, I will always check the airline’s website directly first and book through them (as this is easier if you need to make changes in the long run).
4. Buy flights in local currency
This was particularly shocking to me, but if you purchase flights in the currency of the country the flight is in, you can save large amounts of money. For example, recently I was flying internally in Colombia and searched a flight from Santa Marta to Bogota. If I entered I was from Colombia on the LAN website VS Australia (where I am from), the flight was $50 cheaper when I converted the Colombian rate into Australian dollars. This can save you large amounts of money on long haul flights to foreign countries also. It is not always beneficial to allow these websites to convert the currency for you, pay in foreign currency on your credit/debit card and save!
5. Break up long haul flights with your own stopover
It is easy to assume the best way to search a flight is from origin – destination right? Wrong. If you are a little more flight savvy, you will see that you can save thousands of dollars by investigating a few different stopovers yourself. This doesn’t mean extensive and inconvenient flight itineraries with large numbers of stopovers. It means utilizing cheaper airlines and flights by mixing up airlines and deciding on your own stopover destination. Example as follows:
I was recently looking at flights from Cancun, Mexico to Costa Rica. There are no direct flights possible and the cheapest total price skyscanner.net could offer me was $585 AUD.
However by using my knowledge of Fort Lauderdale, often a cheap connecting airport, I was able to reduce the total flight price by half! A savings of $285 AUD! If you apply this principal to long haul flights, you can save yourself thousands of dollars and have total control over where you stopover and for how long. Remember to leave 3 hours between international flights and 2 hours between domestic.
6. Fly on a Tuesday
Fly mid-week and you can save hundreds of dollars. The most expensive time to fly is always Friday and Sunday night. Consider a holiday that starts and ends mid-week for cheaper flights.
7. Take carry on only
You do not always need check in luggage and this can cost between $20 -50 for bags. I have traveled for up to 2 weeks with carry-on luggage only. Especially if you are headed to a sunny destination, packing a carry on suitcase is a piece of cake. After all, how much room does a bikini and a towel take up?
8. Check the location of the airports
There is always the temptation to go with the super budget airline flight that flies you into an airport that can only just be considered part of that city – mainly because it is so damn far away. Consider the costs of paying for your baggage, food, transport from this airport into the city or any extra nights accommodation you may require if you have an early morning flight at a distant airport and add this into the price. Often, it’s no cheaper to fly into these airports. I personally found flying around Europe with British Airways into Heathrow was just as cost effective as flying with budget airlines from Stanstead, Luton or Gatwick Airports once you added in the additional costs. Flying into Heathrow was also FAR more convenient.
9. Know the country you are traveling in
A quick google search can give you an idea of the going rate for internal flights once you are within the confines of the country. For example, in many South American countries, you can purchase flights for up to half the price advertised anywhere online by purchasing through a travel agency (please ignore rule 1 in this scenario) locally. For Europe, it always pays to purchase in advance (however no more than 6 weeks) as seats are sold on a pricing allocation basis. The cheapest seats always sell first leaving progressively more expensive ones the longer you leave your purchase.
10. Delete your cookies
Ah cookies… the reason that the price for a flight you have checked a number of times has sky rocketed through the roof. Always, always, always delete your cookies before making your final purchase and if the cost has suddenly jumped up a lot higher. Use a friend or partner’s computer/device to check the cost of the price. So many times, I have feared the cost of a flight is suddenly increasing and made an impulse purchase only to realize that the price had never actually increased at all.
11. Consider return flights when flying one way
I am pretty much always flying one-way as a traveler; I seldom return to where I just was! However, I will always check return flights as they can often be hundreds of dollars cheaper than a one way flight. I am not sure the exact reason why this is the case, but so long as you cancel the second flight after you have taken the first, you will not have any troubles with the airline.
Traveling is most certainly affordable and traveling cheaply is a skill. Once you have mastered the craft of hunting down those cheaper flight options, you will be well on your way to a lifelong happy relationship with travel. Bon voyage!
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