Airfare is often one of if not the biggest expenses of your trip or vacation. Travelers rarely find the hidden or let’s say, not so obvious ways of finding cheap deals that can be critical in reducing the overall cost of your trip.
Knowing where to get the best price on airfare is as vital as discovering the right tour company, the right destination as well as the right hotel or AirBnB to stay in.
After all, it the more you spend on your airfare the less to spend in Europe and so you will have a hard time enjoying your trip due to this more limited discretionary income.
After you read my post, you will be on your way to mastering the art of finding a cheap flight.
By following these simple ideas, you should never have to pay the high rates on tickets but instead, you should be bragging to your friends and the person sitting next to you on the plane about what a great deal you got.
Steps Towards Finding Cheap Flights
First of all its good to understand the many reasons that someone is able find deals on airfare, especially to Europe. Since Europe is such a popular continent to travel too, the added competition for an airline company can increase the need to lower rates in order to keep in line with the budget or existing carriers serving that destination.
Whereas in a market or city, lets say North Korea, to use an extreme example, and has limited number of flights or limited number of airlines that travel to it, the level of competition is not as high and therefore the airlines have a tendency to charge higher rates.
Also due to lower capacity as well less fewer flights per day, the flights are usually full and whatever limited number of seats they may have offered at a discounted rate are often filled very quickly.
These are just a couple of the reasons behind the failure to reduce the airline fares, which ultimately make flights expensive.
Fortunately, most major cities in Europe do not fall into this category and this does not mean that there are no cheap airline fares out there. In order to find the best rates, you only need to know a few strategy and a little bit of leg work to find them.
Ignoring the Myths about Cheap Flights
The first and most crucial thing that you need to realize about finding budget flights is that there is no secret trick or someone you need to know in order to find the cheapest flight possible.
When people are looking for cheap flights, they seem to resign themselves to having to make some concessions on comfort, flight times and/or choice of destination.
Travelers are full of different perceptions and stories, which if lived up to, will lead you to getting away from your goal of finding a good deal. There is also no magic that will land you that cheap plane that you so desire.
Thus, it is essential to lay all the myths out there categorically so that we can move on to finding more affordable flight deals that will best suit your needs.
For example, one of the common strategies buying airfare on Tuesdays as the airlines look to revaluate how many passengers are on the flight at time and if they need to adjust the prices or increase the number of budget seats available.
However, one cannot be assured that using this method will find the cheapest flight!
Also some people are under the assumption that if they fly at four in the morning for example or stay over a certain number of days they will better fares.
However, although the likely hood of finding better rates on airfares are better, there are no specific dates or times, where if you search and book your tickets will miraculously find a cheap flight. Its just more likely then not, the limited number of discounted seats are still available as fewer people want to travel at this time.
Flexibility Matters
It is important, however , to keep in mind that, similar to other modes of travel, the prices of airline tickets vary depending on several factors. Some of these factors are the upcoming holidays such as Thanksgiving, New Year’s Eve, Christmas and the Fourth of July. They can also vary depending on the time of the year as well as the day of the week.
Notably, August is a big month in Europe where traveling becomes the norm as everyone wants to travel warm places or because the children are on vacation.
Therefore, traveling when everyone else is will, without a doubt, have you paying higher prices. Thus, it is important to have flexibility in your travel dates.
For example, If you have your heart set on visiting Paris, then you can visit it during the fall or spring because fewer people visit Paris during these times.
The moral of the story here is the more flexible you are with your dates or time of travel the more likely you will land yourself some good deals on airfare.
Another way to save money is by flying in the middle of the week as it is always less expensive than travelling during the weekends because many people travel during this time and therefore the prices of the airline’s are almost always higher.
Of course it goes without saying that flying during a major holiday will only be more expensive therefore, if you travel shortly after or before these times, then you are likely to pay lower rates.
Also bear in mind that early morning flights, as well as late-night flights, are cheaper since who wants to wake up early in the morning to catch a flight. Such differences can mean you are saving hundreds of dollars.
The airlines know that people often travel during holidays, festivals, major sports events or when a school break is coming. Since they know this, they will, without a doubt, raise their prices to maximize these opportunities.
Bottom line is, you will end up saving lots of money when you fly at a time when no one else is traveling.
Destination Flexibility
If you cannot cannot be flexible with the times you fly, then try to show flexibility with where you want to travel to as this is very important in being able to get a cheap flight.
However, ideally you will want to have some flexibility in both the times and dates you can travel but its important to have at least some flexibility in one of the two areas.
Thankfully, the days of the manual search for airfare is over airline search engines such as jettravel have provided you with the ease of searching all of Europe (and the world) to find the cheapest tickets for your particular destination and time frame.
You can also use, bookings.com which offers you the “explore” tool, and allows you to see the whole world’s map after keying in your home airport. It gives you the view of all the flights in the world.
If you show flexibility with the places you wish to travel, that is anywhere else except home, then through these excellent tools, you can begin planning your flights and find the cheapest flights possible.
Basically, there is always a deal to any destination, all you have to do is find the price the fits your budget which sometimes this requires destination flexibility. When you lock yourself to the time and your destination, then the chances of you finding the best rates becomes even harder than you might think.
Fly Budget Carriers
Many years ago, if you wanted to fly in between continents, then you had that many options as the only options you had were only the expensive airlines that have been traditionally going from continent to mainland. However, with the time passed, this has become less and less true.
The budget airlines have now provided services that cover many routes, which makes it possible for you to bounce all over the and pay a lot less then even just a couple of years ago.
For example, On Norwegian Airlines can get you from Bangkok , Thailand to certain European cities for prices ranging from $200 to $250 each way.
Or, other is example is AirAsia which has crazy cheap offers all over Australia and Asia, where flights have been found for about $100 each way.In regards to flights to Europe, the low cost carrier WOW air has been offering cheap flights to Europe and Iceland from the United States. This has made it possible for you to fly for as little as $99 each way.
Besides these, Indian and Middle Eastern airlines offer very cheap flights all over not only the subcontinent but also through Africa.
Therefore, these and many other carriers have enabled you to fly around the world on budget airlines. In the United States of America, only a handful of these exist.
However, in Asia and more so, in Europe, there are more budget airlines. Moreover, the increased level of competition has enabled prices to remain low.
Many times, it is important to note that these low-cost carriers offer very low teaser fares and could be a great deal if it fits your itinerary.
Flying these budget airlines is the best alternative to fly the major airlines and as a great option whenever it is possible because even though you get fewer benefits you can save a lot of money on the fares, which of course is the goal when you are on a limited budget.
With budget airlines you also have to wary extra or supplemental fees, since most budget airlines make a lot of money on the extra fees they charge such as baggage, seat preference etc.
They may also have fees for printing your board pass, carry-ons, the use of a credit card as well as anything else that they can surely get easily but away with.
Hence, it is good to add up not only the cost of the ticket but also the fees to ensure that the prices offered there are lower than the big carrier is. you need to watch what are the fees that are being charged as this could quickly add up and you may end up not getting quite the good deal that you thought you had.
Avoid Direct Flights
Being flexible with your destinations and the dates of your flights but also being flexible with the routes you decide to will help you in finding a cheap flight.
This is because you will find it easier and less expensive to fly through to London and later take a budget airline to say, Amsterdam than flying directly to Amsterdam.
Notably, there are many budget airlines all over the world; thus, it is to be aware of this and take advantage of these excellent deals that they offer to other cities and hopping onto the budget flights that lead to your destination.
For example, you can decide to fly to Paris, and since you may find that direct flights cost about USD 900, which is expensive, you will discover that flying via different places will help.
This is because you can choose to fly to Dublin for about $600. From there you can get a flight to Paris for the price of $60. Since this implies more time is flying, it also does mean a $240 save, which is worth it, if asked.
However, to be able to do this efficiently, there is a great need to know the exact amount it will cost for you to travel directly to your destination. Thus, opening our airfare search engine and typing in your European destination of choice helps you see of all the prices that are possible to the nearby airports.
If the difference of the fares amount exceeds $150, then it is usually better for you to look into how much it will cost for you to get from your alternative airport to the primary destination you were heading.
Through working out the different airlines as well as individual offers, you will discover that you can save a lot of money that has gone through the direct flight.
Nevertheless, it is vital to note that this method does not suit the needs of every individual. This is because it involves more work than usual as you will have to discover different routes as well as check the various airlines made available for your travel to these courses.
In spite of all the work that you will have to put in to determine all of these, it is important to note that your overall goal of saving money on your flights will be achieved as you will not have to spend more to arrive at your destination.
Final Thoughts
The above discussed techniques and advice are given so that you can use to find the cheapest discounted airfares to Europe and many other places.
All you have to do is be flexible and ready to search, compare and contrast all the airline prices, including schedules and stops to be able to make the best decision for you and your itinerary.