How to Find Good Airline Fares
- 1). Buying fares far in advance is the most sensible thing you can do. The closer it gets to the time of travel, the higher your fare will be. This is obvious to most of us. It is especially true during peak travel times such as Christmas and summer. Also, this is one time when you will want to spread yourself thin. Be prepared to check all the sites you can find and have your travel agent do the same and or get back to you with her recommendation(s).
- 2). Keep up with what' s new. In addition to sites such as Expedia and Orbitz, new sites are always cropping up. Stay in tune with the times. Kayak is a great site for booking cheap online fares, and who'd heard of them a while back? Cheaptickets.com is a good site, but not always in keeping with its monicker.
- 3). Sign up for fare alerts. Are you ready to book a trip to London but realize you can give it some time and thought? Sign up for a fare alert such as Expedia provides. They'll alert you when that $900 RT flight has plummeted to $720. Jump!
- 4). Ask your friends to tell you about sales. News of sales is always cropping up in the "New York Times" travel section, among other places. Clip the ads and follow up. Also, if your friends know you want to go to Rome in a few months, they'll tip you off when their third cousin, the travel agent, has told them about a little-known deal on Air Rome (to use a hypothetical example).
- 5). Have credit card and be quick. When that good deal comes up, oftentimes there will only be one or two tickets left. Don't delay. You may come back tomorrow and the fare will have shot up $100--seriously. Nothing is more depressing (well, relatively speaking) than finding out you can no longer afford to go to Tokyo to see your cousin graduate.
