Flight Booking Major Key: Don’t Loaf

X amount of months ago, my homegirl told me she was planning a trip to Costa Rica for the beginning of the summer.  When she asked me if I wanted to come along, obviously I said yes!  I’m really not sure how long ago this was (hence the X months) but this trip has been on the radar for a minute.

I bought my flight from Costa Rica last month (I’m not coming back to the DMV so no round trip).  For whatever reason, I waited to get my flight going.  Last week, I put buying the ticket at the top of my to do list.  For a few days, I checked flights regularly.  I picked out the perfect flight, at the perfect time, and at the perfect price.  Thursday, I physically clicked on it as if to buy it but I didn’t.  I waited.  The next day, I decided to really stop playing around, get serious and purchase this ticket.  You know what happened?  My perfect ticket at the perfect time for the perfect price was GONE.  Why did I wait so long to buy it?  Because sometimes I don’t know how to act and subsequently don’t deserve nice things.  I loafed, heavy, and had to end up buying a more expensive ticket.  Friends, please do not me like me.

According to the experts, the best time to purchase an international flight is anywhere from 5 to 1 ½ months before your departure date.  And the best time to purchase any flight (domestic or international) is on Tuesdays at 3 pm.  This is the time when airlines announce their sales so your chances of getting the lowest price are higher, so “they” say.  Below are a few tips I use (usually) to get the best price on flights that I can:

1. Don’t loaf

If you are within the desired time range to purchase tickets and you see what you know is a very good price, book it.  If you wait hoping it will go down further, you run the risk of losing it all together *ahem* and obviously, you don’t want that.  Again, don’t be like me.  Be better than me.

2. Clear your cookies/cache

The flight websites are keeping tabs on your searches so when you come back around, the prices will be higher because they already know what you’re looking for.  They watching you and they tracking you.  Can’t trust em.

3. Compare, compare, compare

When looking for flights, I check multiple websites (a few listed below).  If I see a good flight on one of the price matching sites, I will go to that specific airline’s website as well to see if there may be a price difference.

I hope this information helps! What are some things you do to get the cheap flights? Let me know!

 

Websites:

www.skyscanner.net

http://matrix.itasoftware.com/

https://www.hipmunk.com/flights-search

www.google.com/flights

 

Twitters to follow:

@TheFlightDeal*

@error_fares

@airfarewatchdog*

*These also have websites but if you’re active on twitter it’s easy to just follow them there so you can see the flight deals daily.