Getting the best deals on airfare usually involves more than just entering your dates and clicking “buy.” If you’re looking to save money when booking flights, it can pay to take a strategic approach. One expert tip is to find the sweet spot between booking too early or too late. Other effective tactics include being flexible with your dates and opting for early-morning flights. Read on for more booking tips and how you can avoid these common — and costly — mistakes.
Always Booking the Cheapest Fare
United, American, and Delta all offer basic economy fares, which are a cut lower than the standard economy class and often don’t allow you to bring a carry-on bag, choose your seat, or change your ticket.
These fares may look like the cheapest option, but you’ll have to either play by the airline’s rules or pay extra for things that are included in a standard economy fare. If you have a carry-on, need to sit with a family member, or just hate the middle seat, you may actually save money and effort by booking the standard fare upfront.
Booking Too Early (or Too Late)
The belief that you can find the best rate by buying flights as early as possible is outdated. While you can typically book flights 11 months prior to departure, Hopper’s chief data scientist Patrick Surry warns against doing so if you want the lowest prices. “Booking more than six months ahead can cost you since airlines set their initial prices conservatively,” he advises.
But booking too close to your departure date can also be a mistake. Expedia’s 2024 Air Travel Hacks report found the best time to book flights is 60 days out for international trips and 28 days out for domestic trips.
Avoiding Early Morning Flights
While it can be hard to wake up for a morning flight, it might be your best bet for a good price. Flights that leave in the early hours of the day tend to be cheaper than more popular departures later in the morning (after 8 a.m.) or afternoon. As a bonus, early morning flights are also less likely to be delayed as most of the previous day’s flights have landed and the airspace is relatively quiet.
Being Too Strict With Travel Dates
Not being flexible with your travel dates could come at a cost. According to Expedia, the most expensive day of the week to travel is Sunday, while the cheapest day is Thursday — flying on the latter could save you up to 16 percent. While this is important to keep in mind, the cheapest days to travel vary by flight and destination. Using a booking engine like Skyscanner, Kayak, or Hopper allows you to compare rates over several days or an entire month to see when the best travel days are. By using this method, you might also be able to take advantage of airline errors or sale fares, resulting in super-low tickets at the airline or booking engine’s expense.
Waiting for Specific Days to Book
Airlines now use dynamic pricing to set rates, which means that an algorithm uses real-time demand to figure out what the airfare price should be. So prices will often fluctuate and change at a moment’s notice, instead of on a specific day and time. While the rise in dynamic pricing means the science behind the best day to book a flight is more limited, there’s still value in looking at the data to see what day historically tends to have lower prices.
If you don’t have the time to do research, you can avoid missing a fare drop by setting a price alert on sites like Hopper, Kayak, and Google Flights — they’ll track the flights you want and notify you when it’s the best time to book.
Only Checking One Website
It’s easy to look up flights on just one website, see a decent price, and book — but you might miss out on better deals this way. Instead, use a combination of websites to compare prices and what they offer. Check fares on multiple flight aggregators like Expedia and Google Flights, as well as airlines’ own websites. Sometimes, flights that appear on aggregators don’t actually exist or turn out to be more expensive once you get to the final booking page, whereas airline websites might have an even cheaper deal that didn’t appear in a general search.
Not Using Flight Hacks
If you can’t find an affordable flight, consider alternative booking methods. Use Skyscanner’s “explore everywhere” search feature to see the cheapest flights from a particular place, which can help you pick your next vacation spot. Another method is by booking one-way fares instead of a round-trip, or even multiple connecting round-trips. You can also search for flights out of nearby airports — depending on where you live, an extra hour in the car may save you hundreds.
Not Checking Prices After You Book
While you might see a cheap price for a flight and think it’s the lowest it will go, that’s not necessarily the case. You should continue checking your flight’s prices even after you book because if it drops, you can either call the airline and ask for a price adjustment or, depending on your ticket type, cancel your flight and rebook it. Some sites, like Expedia, offer price-drop protection that will automatically refund you if your fare decreases after you’ve booked, though it does cost extra.
