International Travel

Buying Airline tickets can be expensive, even when flying domestically, but it doesn’t have to be. Tickets prices can sometimes be unpredictable but there are a few tricks to make sure you don’t overpay. The first tip is to buy the ticket as early as possible. Sometimes, on an unpopular or half empty flight for instance, the airline waits until the last possible minute to sell the cheapest tickets. But usually, the earlier you buy the better. Anything less than a month in advance is going to be expensive. If you know about a trip six months in advance, book it.

Next, try to be flexible about flight times. Flying at 2 a.m. on a Wednesday is going to be significantly cheaper than flying at noon on a Saturday. Red-eyes and mid-week flights are usually always less expensive. Also, as obvious as it seems, book round-trip tickets in the same transaction, on the same airline. It is usually cheaper to do so, instead of buying them separately. When flying to a heavily populated area, such as New York City, try flying into the secondary airport. For example, instead of flying into JFK, fly into LaGuardia or Newark. Also, bigger airlines, such as American Airlines or Continental will be more expensive than airlines such as Jet Blue.

According to the AARP, the best time to book tickets from an airline is Wednesday from midnight to 1 a.m. in the airline’s original time zone. “That’s when the computer systems of most airlines get rid of the reserved but unbooked lower fare reservations. Most of us at one time or another have booked a reservation, and then let it go without purchase. Snap-up these discounted fares right after this happens and you’re likely to get a significant discount.” So, if you were to book a flight with Delta, you would wait until it is 12 a.m. Eastern Time, since Delta’s headquarters’ are in Atlanta, Georgia.