By Rory Shaffer
Airfare pricing is extremely complex, with algorithms changing fares minute by minute. It puts the average consumer at a significant disadvantage and far too often results in travelers overpaying for flights. Many consumers use many sites like Expedia but, this are not your best options. With a little patience and due diligence. I have some suggestions to help find some reasonable and affordable flights.
This is the way most people approach finding a flight:
Pick where they want to go
Pick their dates
See what prices are available
The results will be expensive, and many people are looking for a cheap or reasonable deal.
Be flexible with where and when to go. If you have a set destination, picked out your dates, and don’t have flexibility, 95% of what you can do to bring down the cost of airfare is already out the window. Flexibility is the key to lower cost airfare. Plus, as we'll discuss below, once you get to Europe or Asia or wherever, it’s easy to hop a budget flight to your final destination.
If you're looking to book the cheapest flights, be sure to search more than one date. (Clicking the calendar in Google Flights shows you cheap tickets for two months at a time.). This where the flexibility comes in.
Use the best flight search sites:
There are so many sites out there that is hard to choose, some of my favorites are Esky, Skyscanner, Google Flights and Momomodo. There are certain airlines like Southwest that will not show up in the search. You will need to look directly on their site for flight prices
Find the best deals with google flight explorer:
One of the reasons I love Google Flights is because it makes it really easy to see tons of options on flights. First, you can input up to seven airports in the departure and arrival fields, so if you can fly from any airport on the East Coast to any airport in Spain or any other destination just put in the corresponding airport codes and you can see the route that'll be cheapest.
If you're even more flexible, you can use the Google Flights Explore Map.
Just put in your departure airport and leave the destination open (or select a region, country, or state like Europe or Asia or Bali or Texas) and a map will populate with all your options. You can search select dates or browse weekend, one-week, or two-week trips in the next six months.
Best days to travel:
The best days of the week to travel on are Tuesday, Wednesday and Saturday. Please keep in mind that is not always true because, travel deals can pop up at any time. The most expensive days are Friday and Sunday.
I have one more pro tip for you. With fuel prices rising I have had to look at flying to a hub airport like Istanbul, Manilla, Singapore and then flying from there to my destination. I have the prices can be cut in half.
I hope this helps you find the perfect flight for your destination :-)
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