AICOM Solutions
It’s not easy – but it’s not impossible. Looking for the lowest airfare requires a perfect mix of timing, precision, and a lot of patience. You’re going to have to shop around for quite sometime and keep yourself posted, so you won’t have to regret purchasing that ticket just when the prices went tumbling down.
Here are 5 tips and must-do’s to find low airfare.
1. Buy Early (Esp. on peak seasons)
It’s a must – if you plan to travel during peak seasons (e.g. Christmas to New Year, summer, spring, Holy Week, etc.) always book ahead of time. If you plan to travel internationally, make bookings at least 4-6 months ahead of your target date, meanwhile, if you plan to travel locally, start looking and booking at least a month or a few weeks ahead. Some local airlines change their rates during specific dates – if you’re a frequent traveler you might have already observed when they would increase. Some airlines increase fares 21, 14, 7, and 3 days before the flight.
2. Stay on-guard (For off-peak seasons)
You can also get a steal deal at the very last minute – some airlines actually sell the far for a very low price especially when they fail to fill their planes. If luck is normally on your side, then you should be on-guard for this. However, not all airlines give it away for a very low price.
3. Don’t impulse buy
Don’t click the button that says BUY right away. Even if you think that it would be the best deal at that time – remember, prices may go even lower the next day. So…
4. Keep Posted
It really is the key. If you would like to travel frequently, subscribe to airlines’ weekly newsletters or SMS notifications – the newest promos will be sent to you first! Take note or keep a little record book and monitor the difference of the prices from day 1 to day 6. This will help you monitor and decide when it would be best to buy. Also, it’s very helpful to consult with aggregators and travel websites. They provide most recent tips, rates, promos, links, news and articles.
5. Know when to finally buy!
It’s also very important that you know when to actually hit that BOOK or BUY button – you can’t just keep coming back on the website waiting for the price to go lower. Try to observe two or more airline sites, aggregators or travel sites to compare their prices. One tip to make the decision easier is to allot a certain amount or budget for your fare – just wait for the fares to come close to your budget.
It might not always be the lowest; you can’t avoid regretting purchasing the flight just when another lower fare shows up. When this happens, there’s only one way to stop regretting – make the trip worth it. And if you're an ultimately busy person - with taking care of business and organizing so many things - you will definitely need someone who can take care of all these for you. If you have an assistant, just give them your flight details and have them look out for you.
--
Photo:
http://www.prlog.org/
