Dynamic airfare and specially the fluctuations around holidays, can lead to a perpetual war when picking tickets. The essential thing about determining what would be the right price for a flight would be to assess if or not the trip is viable. However, there is no way to formulate a specific reason responsible for the cost of a route on any given day. With more and more passengers opting for airline travel, and the compounded number of aircrafts covering higher number of destinations, the pricing algorithms are becoming more computerised. This is making it difficult for any customer to pin point the best time in the year to book a plane ticket. But still one cannot ignore the prevalent trends in the ticket pricing patterns of the airline industry. And these can serve as a good guide for the frequent vacation traveller. Let us look at some of the quick tips for those who are looking for pocketing the best airplane ticket deals.
Planning for vacations
It is holiday time and you want to travel, for example, to Greece for a stupendous holiday. You will look for travel packages online. Sometimes, when trying to travel to far areas, it can be an awful lot to travel, especially around holidays and there is simply no way around the time and the ticket expense.
Airline companies are aware that near and around the vacations, there are hordes of people attempting to travel to great holiday destinations. And therefore, these tickets for specific destinations are timed according to the distance, destination and the vacation time of the year. Travellers taking a trip around the holidays are thus, forced to buy highly priced seats while if you are travelling on the holiday itself, you will be surprised to see the prices being comparatively cheaper. For example, tickets are priced less on holidays like Independence Day, Labor Day, Thanksgiving Day and even Christmas Day!
Advance Booking
Booking engines of airlines are typically opened, a full year in advance – but that far out usually, one cannot find the best ticket fares. The principle behind this pricing is that airlines believe that someone who is planning so far ahead in time for a trip, must be very keen to travel and as such will pay for a seat of his choice top money. This same logic also applies for tickets that are booked inside of two weeks. Airlines believe that a last minute booking means travel with a critical reason and one that cannot be avoided – thus the customer will pay anything for the airplane ticket. The best time to buy a plane ticket is at the 2 – 3 month mark. This period ensures that the airline offers the best price in order to book seats that are still unsold and ensure a full capacity flight on the day of the flight.
Travelling on weekdays
It has been observed that typically corporate professionals travel on Sunday evenings, Friday or Monday mornings – thus flight seats are generally available and better priced for weekdays like Tuesday or Wednesday and Saturdays that are not that busy.
New Route
Also when airlines launch a new route, the airfare is usually set at a steep discount as a promotional gimmick, as they want to generate the interest of the frequent travellers.