Article by: April Greene, Guest Post.
The idea of traveling the world has always had this glamorous glow around it. Unfortunately, the glow usually has an expensive golden lining. Chuck that thought right out of your mind, though — with these tips and tricks you can give in to your wanderlust without breaking the bank.
Book your flights early
A bit of an obvious tip, but do you know exactly how early you should book your flights? Skyscanner crunched the numbers and came up with the following: 7 weeks in advance for short flights and 18 weeks for long haul destinations. Check out Skyscanner!
Buy tickets on a Tuesday
Research from FareCompare has found that Tuesdays are more often than not the cheapest days to buy tickets. Tuesdays at 3PM Eastern, more specifically. Major airlines typically announce the most sales around this time, and as their competition scrambles to match the low sale prices you can pick and choose from a larger amount of deals.
Pack light
Yeah, a cheap flight on a budget airline might save you a bit of money, but you better beware if you’re carrying a lot of luggage. Parking4Less, a parking aggregator that focuses on UK airports in one of its blog posts, lists baggage fees among the top 3 hidden costs when traveling with budget airline flights, so ditch the checked-in bags and stick with carry-ons as much as possible instead.
Fly on slow days and times
When you buy a ticket isn’t the only important timing consideration; you also have to think about when you’ll be flying. Stay away from Friday and Sunday flights and try to fly on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Saturdays. Flying at dawn, around dinnertime, or on a red-eye flight will also help keep your ticket price down.
Split flights up between carriers
Not only do you get more competitive prices when you stick to one-way flights from different carriers, you also stand to get in on better — i.e. cheaper — flight times. Be warned, though: one-way tickets can be more expensive when you’re traveling to or from smaller airports, so you may want to drive to a larger city with more competition between the airlines.
The problem with splitting flights up between carriers is that you are not covered if your first flight is late or cancelled and you miss your connection. There is no obligation to find you a new connection because it’s a different airline. This is a problem you don’t want to have.
Certainly a good point.
I just recently started looking for one way flights and it is a huge money saver! It doesn’t always work well for long haul flights, but a couple of months back I flew from Barcelona to Brussels to Rome to Barcelona all on one-leg tickets for less than $100 USD! Thank you skyscanner :). And yes to buying tickets on Tuesday – I always check prices then!
http://www.california2catalonia.com
Glad it works for you, Liz!
We usually try to fly midweek, the fares are lower. Great tips!
Yes, I so need to get cheaper flights, since I tend to travel a lot.
Rodrigo Pittman recently posted…My Golden Rolodex
Give it a try!