If you are a “job for kitchen and travelling for the soul” kinda person, saving money for travelling must be your key issue while handling your finances. While travelling is refreshing and entertaining, it’s hard on the pocket, especially if the means of transportation is flights. They cost a lot. But just because your money is finite does not mean you can’t enjoy travelling by flight. There are other ways to save money,l, through some hacks and yes we mean in a legal, simple way.
Even booking your flight tickets can use some hacks that you should be aware of if you are really passionate about that extra legroom. Learn about those magical yet real tricks and flight booking hacks that would provide you with those comfortable yet cheap airline tickets. So get ready for some Emirates experience at a not-so-Emirates price and follow some of our best tried and tested flight-booking hacks.
1. Flight booking in advance.
One of the most tried and tested flight-booking hacks we would suggest is booking your airline Tickets in advance. Now let us explain the logic behind it. Just like you, there are hundreds and thousands of others who wish to travel and book airline tickets. These booking increases during any occasion or vacation season for a particular destination.
As the demand increases so do the prices. Therefore, for whatever date you have the calendar for travelling, just make the booking for tickets 6 to 8 weeks in advance. This because very crucial when you are travelling to an international destination. Arranging for passport, visa, travel insurance and other important documents need to be arranged in time and for that advance booking of flights for international travel helps sort many things out and protects from being waitlisted.
If you are waitlisted by airlines you are still 6 to 8 weeks ahead and can consider other airlines for your flight. This is not technically a money-saving hack but it would prevent you from being on your knees at the last minute and booking whichever flight is available at a higher price. Therefore don’t forget to make an advance booking of your flight tickets.
2. Pick off-season dates to book your flight
The heading says it all but let us weigh in. One of the most important things you must be while booking flight tickets is to be flexible. Be flexible with your travel destinations and the season in which you travel. Avoid travelling in peak seasons for cheaper flight tickets, that’s the gist. Different destinations have different peak seasons.
Peak season means the period when the said destination enjoys the most crowd. and during these peak seasons when demands are high, prices soar, even the cost of accommodations increases and every tourist experience one can avail enjoy would become very expensive. Airlines make most of their revenue in these peak seasons by flying to specific destinations.
For example during the months of October to December, flights from the UK to India increase and for airlines, it becomes a peak season. The demand for flights to go from international markets also increases during this season.
And since your goal is to save money on your flight bookings, you can try to avoid that. Now it is extremely unfair because you envisioned yourself slipping a martini under the shadow of palm trees of Hawaii in summer, so letting that go for a winter vacation might hurt. So choose a destination that you can travel to any season and avail a joyous experience. For example, in Himachal Pradesh throughout the year, from January to December is peak season.
3. Inspect all travel search engines.
Another hack to save some money while booking flight tickets is to inspect all of your options of airline carriers. There are so many airline carriers available which have flights available for the same destination at the same time but for different prices. A flight ticket can be very expensive and we can use some help to lift the weight from our pocket and therefore it’s important to catch an affordable deal.
It is best advised to examine as many travel search engines as possible like InterMiles, Expedia, Skyscanner, etc. The benefit you might avail yourself of is that the search engines would provide you with all available flights from different carriers and you can compare their prices as described by the airline carrier for the travel destination.
4. Book an early or late flight
While you book flight tickets, make sure your timing is right. As we explained earlier, advance booking is a far better option. However, the time of flight is also equally important. As we explained, the price of flight tickets is affected by their demand. If the time of flight is at odd hours of morning or night, people would be discouraged to book them.
Waking up too early or staying out till very late poses to be an inconvenience. This leads to a, even a minor but a drop in price of the tickets. If you want cheaper tickets, choose the time while booking to be either too early or late. This might be a bit inconvenient for you but no pain gain and you will be saving a lot of money.
5. Before booking clear browser cookies
For the last hack, something trivial that you might have done and now can also help you save money. While surfing through the browser, you go through many portals looking for luxurious, extravagant travel destinations.
Cookies then help travel pages to decipher what you want. This leads to the reflection of inflated prices of flight tickets by travel pages. To avoid that always before booking your flight tickets, clear your browser cookies.
