Best Time to Look for Flights
You might think flight booking has become so much simpler now. All you have to do is visit a travel search engine, enter your flying dates and you are presented with a list of travel fares from all possible airlines! Wow, you can now compare airfares of different airlines, repeat the search with other convenient dates and time and see how the change affects the cost of air travel. If you are still in the phase of planning, you will probably come back the next day and check the prices again only to find that your discount flight no more appears in the search! Or even if it does, the airfare is not what it was the day before. So, now you book the flight for whatever price the airline asks, just to keep your travel plan in place. Out of curiosity you repeat your search on another search engine and guess what you find? Your original flight is still very much there with the same discount fare as the day before! (Er..what did I say about flight booking becoming simpler?)
When is the Best Time to Look for Flights Online
True, online booking has become convenient and cheaper to some extent. Earlier you just paid whatever amount your travel agent asked without bothering to check the airfare on your own. However, with the easy Internet access at your fingertips, you are more determined to find out cheaper flights, cheaper hotels on your own. And the advance travel search engines only make this job simpler for you. Unfortunately, the overwhelming amount of information available to you, the fast changing trends in the airline industry and the inconsistency in the search results add to the confusion making this task unnecessarily complicated. However, if you familiarize yourself with the basics of airline ticket pricing and trends, chances are you will succeed in getting cheaper flights on most occasions.
The answer to the above question would invariably be Wednesday, around midnight. However, this information is unlikely to earn you anything as almost every traveler knows of this little airline secret. Flying midweek is anytime cheaper than flying on weekends because most people prefer weekends for making travel plans. Airlines are booked to their capacity on weekends. As airlines are able to sell tickets at a higher price on weekends, they do not offer discount prices for weekend flights. Hence, this could be the worst time to fly. By choosing to fly mid week you can avail several discount prices.
Airlines hike fare prices on Friday, through the weekend. Around Monday, a weakest competitor announces discount airfares in a bid to attract travelers. This forces other airlines to lower their airfares to match the competing airline. As the fare war rages, you see a significant decline in airfare by Wednesday afternoon. Hence, Wednesday could be your best day to book a flight. The reason why you should look for flight post midnight is that most airlines update their database between 2 a.m to 4 a.m, at their home base. This is the time, when there are minimum search queries. Incidentally, this is also the time, when most server errors occur. So in case you see an airfare at unbelievably low price, it could be a result of server error such as a missing digit etc. Needless to say, this is the time when you should take the plunge.
While booking online, make sure you compare results of 2 to 3 search engines. Also refer to the airline's official website to see if their prices are the same as travel search engine's. Some airlines do not offer their discount prices to search engines. In that case, it is best to contact the airline office.
