If you're looking for a deal on airfare, common wisdom is to
book early and be flexible with your dates. While flexibility is good, the
advance part may cost you money. Peter Greenberg, CBS News' travel editor,
shared some of his tips to save money and avoid costly mistakes when booking airfare.
We've talked about how you should book eight weeks in advance when shopping for
airfare, and while Greenberg doesn't offer up complex equations to support his
experience, he does say that you should probably wait and book a little later
than that, mostly because of limitations in airline reservations systems.
Instead, he suggests booking no earlier than 45-days out, or six weeks:
The Cheapest Time to Book a Flight Is Eight Weeks Before
You're Traveling Economist Makoto Watanabe worked out a formula designed to
calculate the best time to buy an… Read more read The number one mistake I see
most travelers make is to book too early. Unless you are planning travel for
high-traffic days, like Christmas or July 4, you stand the best chance for the
lowest possible fare 45 days out for domestic travel and 60 days out for
international. Outside of that 45-day window most airline computers aren’t
programmed to give you any kind of a deal. It’s all about computer modeling—the airline knows, for
example, how many people flew on Flight 405 to Cleveland last February, and in
February of 2012 as well. They make their projections of the load for this
February based on that.
If you book too far in advance, you’ll almost always
pay a higher fare, and then, if the prices later drop, you can’t take advantage
of the lower price without incurring the standard change fee—which will easily
erase any possible savings. He notes that being flexible with your flight time
and date is probably the next biggest way to score a discount—if you're set on
flying on a specific day, you're locked into whatever prices you can get. If
you can wiggle around a bit, fly in early or a day later, you have more
room—especially if you can fly midweek, which is almost always the cheapest
(and least crowded) flights you can get. As for the best time of day to get a bargain, he suggest
Wednesday morning at 1AM. Here's why: Now that I’ve narrowed down when I want
to travel, I follow a few time-tested rule about when to book. There is a
specific time if you want to get inexpensive flights.
Buy your ticket on
Wednesday at 1 am, just one hour after Tuesday midnight. But remember, that’s
midnight in the time zone where the airline is based (know when to call for all
US airlines). Why Tuesday? Most low airfares seem to appear between Sunday
night and Monday night. And then, when people book those fares, they have 24
hours in which to purchase them. At midnight Tuesday, all the discount fares
that weren’t purchased come flooding back into the airline’s computer systems.
And that’s when you strike. You can’t do this online…You need to have a
conversation with a human being at the airline.
It’s also how you book the best
economy seats without paying extra. This is similar to our advice that you
should start your airfare shopping on Tuesdays to score the best deals, but
Greenberg takes it a step further and suggests you pick up the phone and call airlines reservation company to
see what they can do for you, which is worthwhile if you have the patience. Hit
the link below for even more money-saving tips for your next flight. For the Cheapest Airline Tickets, Start
Shopping on Tuesday Afternoon To get the best deal on a domestic airline ticket.
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