Can we get a few links into the sidebar - specifically for flight searches?

[u/protox88]

NEW GUIDE IS HERE: http://www.reddit.com/r/travel/wiki/airfare

READ THE NEW GUIDE

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

WHY ARE YOU READING THIS? I SAID GO READ THE NEW GUIDE HERE:

http://www.reddit.com/r/travel/wiki/airfare

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

tl;dr: There is no Golden Rule to Cheap Tickets from here. Use all these resources:

1. Use ITA Matrix and compare with the rest: Skyscanner and Kayak for aggregation. Google Flights. Google owns ITA. Hipmunk - Redditor-made, and presented in time-bars. Adioso - simple and flexible searching. For simple one-ways or round-trips, look at Routehappy. Momondo - another alternative.

2. See WikiVoyage for discount airline info. For example, there's RyanAir, Air Asia

3. Book the flights on the official airline site or on expedia/orbitz - whichever one is able to replicate the flights you found on ITA Matrix. If not, call your local travel agent.

4. Booking flights on two separate tickets can be cheaper than booking it all on one ticket - especially if you can use discount airlines. Caution: if your initial flights are delayed, your next flights are not protected - it will be considered missed - so do not book tight connections on separate tickets. See: General guidelines for connections.

5. Other tips on booking complex itineraries. Consider departing from a major hub (and driving there) instead of your regional airport.

6. Don't know when and where to go? Use Kayak Explore or the "Everywhere" destination in Skyscanner or Google Flights Explore to get an idea.

7. Need to book around country-based travel restrictions or country-based pricing? Try Expedia Japan for Yen pricing or Expedia Canada for CAD pricing. Most airlines also offer country-specific sites. More details about sales city below.

8. Take a look at this thread which shows the progression of ticket prices from 2 weeks to 4 months prior to departure date. It's a single sample, but it's a pretty good demonstration of the 4-8 week rule. This study done by ARC shows that prices starts dropping at the 3-month mark, with the cheapest tickets ranging from 3 weeks to 10 weeks in advance.

9. Start searching around 3 months in advance and monitor your flight prices every day until it drops to a level you're comfortable with. If the price rises, you have to commit to a maximum price you're willing to pay. This isn't a science. An example of an experiment I conducted. Explanation of "when to buy". And this stackexchange post reinforces my comments.

10. Why prices differ for the same Economy Class ticket: the general idea behind fare basis codes - the reason why round-trip flights can sometimes be cheaper than one-ways: one-ways are usually on a more expensive fare basis. /u/sataimir explains Fare Classes ver well.

11. Student? Try your luck at STA Travel or Student Universe

12. Flying last minute is vastly more expensive than planning ahead. Airlines typically close down the "discount economy" ticket sale window around 1-2 days before departure. Flying standby can result in lower costs but only if you don't care when you go nor where you go (still rare). Always plan ahead if you know you need/want to fly somewhere. More here.

13. Use some other tricks to airline booking. Caution: if the airline finds out, you can be charged the fare difference or your status/award miles earned can be invalidated as it can be considered a breach of the fare rules ("contract") that most people don't read.

14. Extending your stay in a connecting city: Try looking for a flight with a connection, and book a multi-city version of that itinerary, but making the layover 3 days instead of 3 hours - More details here

15. Can I buy a flight (A-B-C) and only fly the B-C leg? NO. This is not allowed.

16. Give up searching for your own flight? Try Flight Fox and pay someone to do it for you.

17. If constantly checking the same airline / travel agent site - browse in incognito mode (useless) or clear your cookies after every visit. bollocks!

Just for clarification since so many people get this wrong:

• Immigration is the control measure that prevents/allows you from entering or leaving the country.

• Customs is the control measure that prevents/allows from bringing stuff into or out of the country (i.e. "imports" or "exports")

Region Specific Sites:

• Europe (discount): Dohop for Intra-European Flights, RyanAir, EasyJet

• East Asia: Scoot, Air Asia, JetStar

• Australia: Webjet, JetStar

• Japan (departing): A few travel agencies sell fixed-period, hidden airline tickets for a bit cheaper. Check out HIS or No. 1 Travel. Beware, they do not include fuel surcharges and fees yet (so it does appear cheaper than normal)

• Hong Kong (departing): Cathay Fanfares for last minute deals - they are very good deals.

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Other information:

• Need frequent-flyer information or mileage accrual information? Go visit FlyerTalk.

• Hipmunk busting Flight Myths

• Bloomberg: flying on Tuesdays is supposedly the cheapest

• There are a few decent explanations in this ELI5 thread about why airfare prices change especially by Xasf who's talking about fare classes (see #10)

• Tips from Bloomberg BusinessWeek. They mostly re-iterated tip #9 above.

• Tips on using ITA Matrix

• List of online travel agencies

• ITA Matrix vs. the rest example

• How to Choose an Air Travel Search Site

[u/Mr0range]

2 months in advance? I found my best prices 6 months early. Flew Chicago- Dublin for 555 round trip in May. Also saw prices for Rome at 510. Always check on a weekday and late at night (past 12). These are the cheapest prices. You should emphasize that when you look for the prices is the single most important factor.

[u/protox88 → u/Mr0range]

I don't believe that's true in the general case. I actively search for flights, especially TPAC, and find the prices relatively unchanged if searching 6 months prior with the exception of fluctuating foreign exchange rates.

I've been actively looking at November TYO/NYC tickets for the past month and, with the Yen fluctuating like crazy, I see the US Dollar prices fluctuate between $1400 and $1600 but the Yen prices relatively stable (115,000 to 121,000) mostly depending on the fare basis that's available.

You should emphasize that when you look for the prices is the single most important factor.

I don't believe this is true to the hour. I can check today at 3pm and check again at midnight for the same flight and more often than not, result in the same prices. Many blogs, non-statistical research groups, and articles publish this garbage about booking on a Tuesday or Wednesday or in fact Mid-week. At least the last article is The Economist.

Although it might be true in terms of relative to the flight date - 2 months is a typical starting window to search, especially for international flights.

Although this is an old study and Airline Economics have changed drastically over the past decade, there is the 8 week rule.

With regards to the Tuesday "sale" rule, yes airlines release sales Tuesday evenings, but doesn't necessarily mean your destination will be on sale. Like I said before, it's not a science and you just have to monitor prices every single day.