If you’re looking to make a spring or summer break escape, there are several tips and tricks to use when searching for deals on airfare to save you money on rates, even late spring and early summer. Unbelievably, buying your tickets several months in advance may end up costing you more money. Best Vacations Ever (BVE) and many experts boast the best time to buy airline tickets is seven to eight weeks before your departure date. It’s around this time when airlines look to fill their seats for future flights. The closer it gets to the flight, the cheaper you may find tickets, but if you wait too long, be ready to pay a premium rate (a skyrocketing high rate) if you book a flight with less than 14 days before you want to depart. Knowing when to book cheaper travel rates during the week means you can save even more than the hundreds of dollars already saved from the complimentary accommodations of a Best Vacations Ever promotional vacation package provided by Preferred Guest Resorts (PGR), making a quick getaway or spring summer vacation a dream come true for your family, and so you can be a savvy, educated traveler who gets the cheapest rates on airfare:
What Days to Fly & Save the Most Money
When airfare hunting, the least expensive days to fly are Tuesdays and Wednesdays. At the beginning of the week, business travelers jumpstart the workweek on Mondays, making it a higher rate day to fly. They typically return home on Fridays, which combined with vacationing travelers trying to maximize their trip stays to include two weekends, making Fridays the other most expensive fly day. Data shows travelers are now taking to the skies on Friday to Sunday, in order to maximize their time and savings while squeezing every ounce of fun and adding an extra day or two into their five-day off vacations. Sunday, however, also is one of the most expensive days to fly, unfortunately. Thus a Friday departure and Sunday return are on two most expensive fly days. Statistics shows that the volume of people traveling lowers after Monday, the start of the work-week and before the weekend begins, which encourages airline carriers to offer discounts or specials to fill those mid week seat vacancies. Weekend travel is known for heavy traveling and higher traffic, especially when you figure in working families that are trying to maximize 40 hours of vacation time off by trying to leave on Fridays and come back on a Sunday so they add two weekends/extra days in their vacation destination. It sounds wonderful, but according to statistics, that methodology and practice has helped make Friday and Sunday two of the three MOST expensive days to fly. But if you’re willing to manipulate your vacation into a Tuesday-to-Tuesday or a Wednesday-to-Wednesday vacation, you can find cheaper airfare and some incredible deals, and save a lot of money. Another time of day that tends to show some inexpensive flights are Saturday nights but typically only for domestic flights within the United States. So you could possibly find a Saturday-night-to-Saturday-night air flight plan that is cheaper than other days of the week, but probably not as good as Tuesday or Wednesday departures and returns, with good reason.
HIGHLIGHT TAKEAWAYS OF BEST DAYS TO FLY AT LOWERS COSTS:
- The cheapest and best days to fly are Tuesdays and Wednesdays.
- The most expensive days to fly are Mondays, Fridays and Sundays.
- Early to mid Saturday airfare rates are more expensive, while some inexpensive rates can be found for Saturday night flights.
- The flight rate changes are a result of lower volume of travelers, leading to cheaper rates on Tuesday and Wednesday fly days, especially when airline carriers roll out discounted rates to fill empty seats on mid-week flights.
- Buying airfare too far in advance could actually cost you more money than if you waited until about 7-8 weeks prior to travel or did not use the aforementioned tips.
Secrets to Finding & Booking Low-Cost Airfare
You would think that you would get cheaper rates by booking airfare several months in advance right? Actually, the further out you book, the more money you may actually end up paying than if you waited till about 7-8 weeks in advance of your vacation. Sounds crazy right? Not really when you think of these airline carriers needing to fill the planes and vacant seats in order to profit the closer they get to flying. Half-off regular airfare rates is much better business wise than no bodies in the seats at all – zero bucks for a handful of vacant seats. Full planes are the desired results for all airline carriers. The special rates also create extremely satisfied travelers who spread the good word about the carrier to the friends, family, colleagues and associates. As the consumer, by booking about 7-8 weeks in advance of travel, at the minimum, and using the aforementioned tips, you can find some really good and lower-cost airfare rates. The closer you get to your date, within reason (around the 7-8 week in advance mark), the cheaper you may find rates to be. HERE’S ANOTHER HUGE, MONEY-SAVING TIP: One of the best days of the week to actually purchase air travel is Tuesday afternoon when Southwest Airlines, the nation’s biggest discount carrier and high-quality service provider, releases their weekly “Click and Cave” discount airfares around 11 a.m. EST every Tuesday. Remember, we already know Tuesday is one of the best days to buy airfare. This is just icing on the cake. This weekly marketing sales event held every week on Tuesday mornings triggers a snowball effect, as competitors start rolling out their own discounted airfare throughout the afternoon in an attempt to capture your business and traveling dollars instead. You could actually find a more expensive rate on a carrier’s website in the morning, then find it offered even cheaper later in the day. Just remember to close down the web page and reopen it, so you get the true web information and not those rates for which the website has you already pegged.
HIGHLIGHT TAKE-AWAY: One of the best days to look and book airfare rates is on Tuesday: Southwest Airlines rolls out its Click and Save program with discounted airfare, which triggers other carriers to follow suit. By Tuesday afternoon many carriers have also dropped their rates, making Tuesday the best day to find some really good airfare rates on already one of the best days of the week to fly.
The Easiest Way to Save Your Time & Money
The best way to find out about all of these sales and discounts is to sign up with each carrier or carriers of choice, especially Southwest’s Click and Save program, for alerts with your email address to which you will receive weekly e-mail alerts. Some even offer text alerts and have apps that offer instant access anywhere, any time. Southwest Airlines CEO Gary Kelly explained to Spirit Airline magazine, if a plane books 125 people, you are pretty much guaranteed that many people have paid a totally different price based on when they purchased their tickets.
Saving Money By Choosing Alternate Airports
You can also save money by choosing alternate airports compared to the big guns. Check your region for alternative airports that offer cheaper airline carrier rates. For example, in Central Florida, many times the Orlando Sanford International Airport or Daytona Beach Airport offer more reasonable rates. Allegiant Airlines, for example, flies to almost 60 cities to and from Sanford (about 30 minutes from Orlando), and Daytona’s airport (about an hour from Orlando) is heralded as a really nice, less crowded alternative with less traffic and crowds compared to Orlando’s International Airport, McCoy. There are also considerably lower rates possible for Newark instead of LaGuardia airports, and Midway instead of O’Hare airports in and out of Chicago. It just comes down to being flexible and looking for alternative airports that can help you save money. Being flexible – and patient while hunting – for airline carrier rates and alterative airports can help you fly with lower airfare rates. Smaller airports are held to the same FAA standards, and though they may be smaller, the pack quite a punch, and are quite nice and convenient. With less traffic and travelers flowing through, security lines are easier to get through and parking may be less expensive or easier. Note, however, that flexibility also is important when booking date to date flights, since many carriers do not run regular routes every single day; only certain days of the weeks. Just be sure when booking any flights that you know what fees are not included are not included and any extra service charges or baggage fees. Do the math to be sure it does not equal out to another carrier’s flight price that you may prefer after all. But flexibility is the name of the game here when it comes to finding cheaper airfare and airports so you can go on that low-cost Best Vacations Ever getaway in every way.
HIGHLIGHT TAKEAWAY: Looking for and choose alternate, often smaller airports, with specific carriers that may also offer more inexpensive carrier rates with increased convenience.
Benefits of a Weekday Vacations & Less Crowds at Attractions
Say you want to take the kids to Walt Disney World® Resort in Orlando, Florida. If you travel Friday to Friday, you spend even more money out of your wallet on airfare, but you also get to deal with the many other weekend-to-weekend traveler traffic. Weekends in Orlando are vastly populated with tourists orbiting the main theme parks and attractions. However, pick a weekday-to-weekday vacation, you hit the parks and all Orlando attractions on more weekdays with lighter crowds. The simple fact is quality and savings are far better than busy, crowded lines and wasted quantity.
HIGHLIGHT TAKEAWAY: Visiting the theme parks and attractions on weekdays can mean less crowds and shorter lines rather than higher weekend traffic.
Lower Airfare Rates & Complimentary Accommodations = Magical Vacations
You can enjoy the best of both world – airfare flight and lodging savings – with a Best Vacations Ever promotional vacation package provided by 30-plus-year travel leader and parent promotional travel provider Preferred Guest Resorts. Check out the bestvacationsever.com website to learn more about 3- to 7-day BVE promotional vacation packages with complimentary accommodations (minus extraneous fees, such as possible security deposits, taxes, incidental charges, damages, daily resort amenity fees etc.). You can also download educational videos about BVE and PGR on the site, understand the full terms and conditions of BVE promotional travel, check out the FAQs, read about each destination in-depth with Fast Facts and Must-Do activity pages, as well as daily-flowing testimonials from satisfied travelers. Rest assured that PGR successful and happily travels tens of thousands of families and cohabitation couples every year with enhanced and incentivized travel. Then call the PGR Travel Reservation Center at 800-656-2780 to speak with a professional agent who will help do a lot of the heavy lifting for you while planning, finding you the best and cheapest rates, and booking the most amazing low-cost vacations that will have your loved ones and your wallet thanking you later!
What is your trick or tip for finding the cheapest airfare rates?
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