Traveling by plane has always been the most expensive transportation option, although many travelers find the way how to find the best travel deal.
If you want to save money on your next airplane ticket, you will have to plan. Here are five tips to help you find the best travel deals in 2020.
READ: How to Have an Amazing Road Trip Around Eastern Australia
1. Browse from Different Locations
Airlines are notorious for price discrimination and dynamic pricing techniques they use worldwide. In case you haven’t heard of these terms before, price discrimination is a strategy that airlines use to offer different pricing to users in different locations.
For example, a person purchasing a ticket from a third world country would pay a lower price compared to a person in the United States.
If you want to unlock the best deals and fetch airline discounts for different countries, you have to change your location using a VPN. You can find a VPN free trial to give this a shot if you don’t want to invest in the service right away.
2. Use Flexible Dates
Unless you are obligated to travel during a specific time, you can experiment with different dates to save money on the next flight ticket. Different dates will unlock different ticket prices. It is not the same to travel in the middle of the season and right before it.
The good thing is, these price fluctuations can happen weeks or even days apart. It means switching your travel dates one or two days ahead can unlock a completely different offer. If your travel dates are not fixed, feel free to experiment until you find a suitable price for your budget.
The main idea is that the more flexible you can be on dates, the more likely you are to find the cheapest deal.
READ: Where to Travel Based on Your Personality
3. Opt for Flexible Destinations
For those who are planning a spontaneous vacation to any destination, finding the cheapest tickets is going to be much easier.
If you don’t have a specific location you would like to go, try to find the cheapest flights on specific websites like Skyscanner. Go to the flights search page, enter the departure city, and type everywhere in the to box. You can see if a destination matches your holiday expectations and budget.
If you have the spirit of an explorer, you will like this feature a lot.
4. Book Individual Flights
Most buyers opt for the connecting flight option on airline websites because it is much easier to buy tickets that way.
The algorithm automatically connects flights to the desired location, so you don’t have to spend time looking for layovers.
However, most airlines increase their prices through the connecting flight option, which means buyers can save some extra money by doing the hard work themselves. Instead of using this automatic option, try to book individual flights for your location.
READ: Traveling in Your Golden Years: 5 Travel Tips for Seniors
Even though this will take a bit of extra time, it will save you some money along the way.
5. Look for Airline Fare Errors
Even though this does not happen often, airlines sometimes make a mistake publishing ticket prices. They might make a typo or accidentally confuse two flights and offer a lower price than usual.
In most cases, tickets purchased under the error prices do not have to be returned, as it is the airline’s responsibility to price their tickets correctly.
READ: 5 Best Apps For Discount Flights – Cheap Flight Deals
People have saved hundreds of dollars just by looking for these errors.
However, if you don’t have time to check the sites every few hours and look for errors, you can use the website Secret Flying. They post airline fare errors as soon as they find them. The lower prices remain available until the airline removes them.
Conclusion
There are many ways to save money when planning a vacation, especially if you have time and flexibility to think ahead. On top of these five tips, one more thing you can do is to book the tickets way in advance.
The earlier you buy, the lower the price.
Therefore, if you can plan a vacation a few months ahead, you will already make some great savings. It also applies to hotels. There are plenty of accommodation discounts and deals for different locations. All you have to do is take your time to search and use all available tools online.