With the price of oil soaring, it’s becoming more and more expensive to fly. Because of this toll, many people have been discouraged from traveling. However, if you know when and where to look, you can easily find a flight a fair rate. Take my recent flight buying experience for example. After searching a couple of weeks on various websites, I was able to book a non-stop flight from Newark to Amsterdam for $575. If I were to book this flight now, I would be paying almost $500 more!
Recently I attended the New York Times Travel Show in NYC. One of the featured lectures at the show were the father daughter duo Pauline and Arthur Frommer. Their lecture was informative particularly on how to get the best deals on airfare. One of the most important pieces of advice the Frommers had to give was to buy airfare sooner than later. This advice used to be the other way around; the longer you waited the better deal you would find. With the continuous turbulence in the Middle East however, fuel prices are only going to rise, and in effect, so will airfare. In other words, if you are planning a flight start looking now!
To find the best airfare, you need to know when and where to look. With the internet, travelers now have more choices now than ever before when booking their flight. The best time to look for low airfare is every Tuesday morning and afternoon. Why? On Monday evening airlines release their “bargain flights”. By Tuesday many airlines have either matched their competitor’s prices or have dropped even lower, allowing you to pick from many different airlines, rather than just a select few.
So now that we know when to look for low airfare, we now need to know where to look. A good place to start is a travel website that will compare airfares from various sites. Personally I like the website Kayak.com the best. Type in the dates and points of interest you would like to travel and Kayak’s search engine will search multiple sites for you to compare fares. For the best results allow a little flexibility in your schedule. For example, many flights are more expensive on the weekends. Another website called Momondo.com is very similar to Kayak and gives equal results if not better because it will bring up search results for the whole month so that you can get the best airfare.
While searching the two websites listed above, do not only play around with possible departure and return dates but also the airport that you are leaving from. If you are in an area that is surrounded by multiple airports (like me) try entering all the airports instead of just the closest one to you. For example if you live in New York City, you may find that it is much cheaper to fly out of Newark Airport in New Jersey than LaGuardia or JFK. Many airfare websites will also ask you to enter your email address and they will notify you when airfare drops for your destination.
Airfare does not have to be so expensive! So if you want to fly, take a few more minutes to find the lowest there is because low fares are out there, you just have to find them! For more websites selling airfare please see the list of links below.
Airfare Websites:
Cheap Flights within Europe:
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