Booking a flight overseas isn't as easy as booking a flight home for the weekend. Airline prices are usually between $1,000-$1,600, that quadruples my ticket home for Thanksgiving weekend. During my quest to find the best airline tickets for the best price I learned some time, and sanity, saving tips.
Flying Dates
This small detail can save you over $200. Research has shown Tuesday through Thursday and Saturday are the cheapest days to fly. Monday, Sunday and Friday were the most expensive since most prefer to leave on a Friday and return Sunday before their week starts. I changed my schedule to leave on a Wednesday and return on a Saturday and it saved me nearly $300. Your travel days may not seem to important, but when you are traveling overseas I'd suggest saving as much money as you can.
Your Budget
Airline ticket costs depend on a few different factors: when they are bought, what dates you are traveling, what time you want to depart and return, and where your seat is. Wanting to save as much money as possible, I will be flying economy. Flying economy on a 10 hour flight isn't ideal, however; most airlines know this and accommodate, yes, even the economy passengers. Finding out what your ideal budget is for airline tickets is key. Most of the tickets will be in the same range, but you will find some tickets will be higher than others. For example, booking my flight to London-Heathrow Airport I found leaving a day early after I got out of work at 5 p.m. cost nearly $500 to $1,000 more. Clearly the later flights are the most attractive since you will be flying during the night, but it is NOT worth the extra money. Save those funds for an exciting adventure, delicious meal, or authentic Italian wine.
Airline Websites
I started searching main airline's websites for flight ideas then decided to switch over to Expedia and Priceline to see if there was much difference in pricing. What did I find? The difference in pricing wasn't to much to worry about, but the convenience of seeing other airlines offering side by side made my life easier. I used Kayak.com to do all of my flight searches. Kayak is very user-friendly and performed better than its competitors. One key feature Kayak has that comforted me was their price trend forecast alert. Every time I got online to check for flights they let me know what their confidence was in that price. If they thought the price was too high they advised me to wait a few more days and check back because the price would most likely lower. This feature is something everyone looking to buy overseas flights should look into. Airline tickets are always fluctuating, it was great knowing Kayak wanted me to find the best ticket at the best price possible.
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