There are several ways to find flights at low fares. Finding low airfare is about conducting the right research, utilizing free tools, understanding your travel flexibility and more. It takes time and energy to find a more affordable ticket, but these tactics each have the potential to help you save big bucks.
Begin your research at kayak.com, dubbed by Budget Travel as the all-time-best place for scoring the cheapest plane tickets. It also has fare-history charts that show the likelihood of prices going down. Also, monitor your fares with websites that cover popular routes. Yapta and Hotwire's TripWatcher will do several price searches per day within your chosen price threshold. You will receive an e-mail alert as soon as a flight drops to your specified price. You can even name your price by using Kayak's fare-history report.
Figure out what your flexibility is. If you are flexible, set up RSS feeds and Twitter with airlines that offer desired flights. Run a flexible date search when purchasing tickets. Find out if you can fly midweek. If you need to fly during the holiday season, it's best to avoid busy holiday dates. You typically save money by flying on the exact day of the holiday. Also, find out what off-season is for your given location, but always check the weather before booking. If you have concrete dates, then book far in advance.
These are more sneaky ways to score cheap tickets. Check neighboring airports for cheaper flights. If you're going one way, check round-trip prices; sometimes round trip can be cheaper than one way. Visit the airline's site. Sometimes, airlines offer lower prices that are not found on discounted sites due to immediacy. JetBlue and Southwest are notorious for doing this. And always check on Wednesdays just after midnight, when airlines reset prices.
