The perceived wisdom when it comes to getting the best price for your flight is that the early bird catches the worm, and if you leave it to the last minute, you should expect to pay more.
One way to ensure you don’t pay top dollar for your flights is to visit a site like Upgraded Points for some useful tips. There are also a number of other tips that are well worth following so that you can beat the odds and book a good deal on a last-minute flight.
Sign up for offers and deals
There are so many different places where you can search for flights, which means it could take you a fair bit of legwork to click on each website and enter your chosen search criteria.
A good way to ensure that you know about any cheap flights and deals that are available is to let the airlines and travel sites come to you by signing up with your email address and also registering for price alerts.
Newsletters and email alerts are good ways to know when the right price for your flight has become available. By acting as soon as you read the message that has arrived in your inbox, you have a good chance of securing your flight for the right money.
Another good ploy is to sign up for specific price alerts. You can enter your chosen criteria, such as when you want to travel and where you are headed. You can then receive alerts when the price changes, either up or down, so you can decide whether to hold out or take what you think is probably the best price for your flight.
Flexibility is key
There is no question that flexibility is often the key to getting the best possible price for your flight.
When it comes to last-minute flights in particular, you will often find that you will be rewarded with a better price if you compromise on the departure details of your flight, especially if you are prepared to take a flight that is deemed to be leaving at an unsociable hour.
There is only so much flexibility you can probably have, but even a little bit of fluidity with your travel plans might enable you to grab a seat for a lot less than a flight leaving later in the day.
Mix and match
In an ideal world, you will want to turn up at the airport of your choice and take a flight direct to your chosen destination, but we don’t live in an ideal world, and if you want to have every chance of saving money, it might pay to look at all travel available options.
You might find that it is cheaper to get to where you want to go by plotting a route that takes you by train, bus, boat, or plane.
It can make things a bit more complicated to organize when you try to schedule different modes of transport for the same trip, but especially when you are traveling throughout Europe for instance, it can often work out to be cost-effective to complete a part of your journey by train or bus, rather than just catch a flight from A to B.
Searching for the best flights
It is also worth mentioning the go-to search engine Google, in your quest to find the cheapest flights available.
You might not think it is very original to suggest using Google to search for something on the Internet, but Google Flight Search is actually a handy tool. It allows you to search for the cheapest tickets through its best flight results.
The information returned via the search can be very useful because it displays the itineraries and allows you to compare factors like stops and departure times so that you can pick a flight that offers the best price with the fewest compromises.
Consider budget carriers
If you are looking to travel to a European destination, it is worth remembering that there are a number of budget airlines operating in this part of the world. These airlines offer some seriously low prices compared to some of the major carriers.
Make sure you search for flights using budget airlines, especially in Europe. Many of these carriers can often offer you a cheap flight, regardless of whether you book well in advance or leave it to the last minute.
Erin Nicholson knows all the tricks for getting the best price for a flight. A frequent traveler for business and pleasure, she shares her top travel tips on the web.
