How to Get Cheap Airline Tickets

The first place to start with cheap travel is cheap airline tickets. Cheap airfare can jumpstart your discount travel strategies.

You can find cheap airplane tickets

Unless you are planning a short trip within a few hours drive in the car, the cost of airfare can be one of the most expensive things about traveling. Most people with moderate incomes simply can’t afford to fly on a regular basis, as much as they might like to.

There are some people out there, though, who are able to fly frequently on regular incomes. The secret to achieving this is a willingness to be flexible and shop around with airfares, as well as employing some tried and true discount travel techniques. With planning, foresight and a little bit of hard work, you can go ahead and have that dream vacation you wanted… the economical way.

Use the Internet to Find Cheap Tickets

The key to getting a cheap airline ticket is to shop around, and the good news is… the Internet makes this super easy for almost anyone to do. There are many websites that will conduct searches around the world and among many different airlines for cheap airfares.

Although the Internet is a valuable tool for finding cheap flights, it’s important that you don’t rely on it completely. Many sites claim they are searching “all flights” for the cheapest possible airfare, but you really don’t have any way of knowing what they do and don’t have access to. Often, the cheapest flights can come directly from the airlines themselves, so I recommend that you check their sites as well in your search.

What I do is use the aggregate sites like Kayak, Travelocity, Orbitz, etc. to narrow down the choices and then I repeat my search directly at the airlines that offer flights I’m interested in. Sometimes the airline is cheaper, and sometimes the search engine returns better prices. It seems to vary from time to time and hour to hour.

No matter how much research you do online, you should always visit some travel agents. Keep in mind that these people make their livings selling airfares, and will often have access to deals that aren’t available to you online. Think of it this way: if you really could always get the cheapest flight online, travel agents would be out of business. The fact that they are not suggests that good deals are to found the old fashioned way: by visiting the office of a travel agent.

Non-Traditional Cheap Airfare Finding Tools

When looking for discount travel, you should also think about using non-traditional methods of finding flights. Websites like priceline.com offer reverse auction systems, that is: you tell them what you’re willing to pay for a flight with specific end/to locations and a date range, and if it turns out that an airline is willing to release a seat for that price, your credit card is billed and a ticket is issued. There’s that need for flexibility again!

Another good avenue to explore is “bucket shops” - companies, also called consolidators, who buy bulk tickets from airlines at a heavy discount. They don’t have the choice that travel agent has, of course, but if you’re flexible, you can often get a good deal. A typical bucket shop system will work as follows: you give them a week-long window during which you’d like to fly and some destination choices, and then if something comes up at the last minute you can have it at a heavy discount.

Another rarely explored discount travel technique is to look into bucket shops and travel agents located in ethnic neighborhoods. Often, foreign airlines sell discounted tickets to these shops, which in turn serve an ethnic community regularly traveling to their home country. These shops have access to tickets from airlines that often aren’t available at your regular travel agent, and can offer a significant savings.

A Few More Tips for Cheap Flights

Here are a few more tips you can use to locate the cheapest airline tickets:

• Sign up for frequent flier miles; it’s a good investment for future savings or even free tickets.
• Ask about student fares or senior citizen discounts.
• DO shop around, as mentioned above. Never buy from the first place you find a fare.
• Try flying on off peak hours schedule, such as before seven in the morning or after seven in the evening.
• Buy your tickets as early as you can, at the very least 3 weeks before you go.
• Travel on weekdays, rather than weekends, and stay over a Saturday.
• Travel on lower-cost, so-called budget airlines such as Jet Blue or Southwest. They tend to be more no-frills, but the savings are worth it.
• Be willing to make a stop or two on the way to your ultimate locations; layovers save you money… though they do cost you in time.

The important thing to remember in terms of discount travel and cheap airline tickets is to explore as many avenues as you can. The more flexible you are willing to be, the cheaper your fare is likely to be - but even if you’re stuck with rigid dates, a compressive search will often result in airplane tickets that are markedly lower than those commonly advertised.

And once you get to your destination, just think how much more money you’ll have to spend on the fun stuff!