Tips for Finding Good Fares

I was the guest "travel expert" on the last episode of ADOBO NATION, the weekly magazine talk program airing Sundays at 6:40pm on The Filipino Channel (TFC). In the ATM: Anong Tanong Mo segment, I talked with host Michi Valeriano about holiday travel and gave a few tips and tricks for finding good airfare deals. For those of you who missed the show or are interested in more details, I thought that I would repeat the points that I made and offer up some more advice that I didn't have time to mention on the show.

Tip 1: Look and book early

In general, you want to book your airline tickets at least 3 weeks in advance. Topaz International – a travel industry auditor - released a study in May that said you can save about 20% for international destinations and up to 50% for domestic trips if you purchase your tickets 21 days or more before the day of your flight.

For travel during the Thanksgiving or Christmas holiday seasons, you want to start looking for deals even earlier, like beginning around August or September. If you see a good price a few months before your trip then you should go ahead and book it if you can afford to, because the really great deals don't last very long before selling out.

It's also helpful to know that many airlines recalibrate their prices on Tuesday or Wednesday, sometimes in response to changes made by their competitors, so if you research fares on those days you are more likely to see "fresh" deals. If you make a habit of checking the price of an itinerary every day, you will be less likely to miss out on a great price.

Tip 2: Be flexible

When choosing dates for your flights, it generally helps if you aren't tied down to specific travel days. If you can, try to fly on a Tuesday or Wednesday -- prices will be better on those days since most people fly on Fridays, Sundays and Mondays. You will also get a better deal if your trip includes a Saturday night stay. It helps to think of the days that a business traveler would want to fly to be at work during the week and at home during the weekend -- and then do the opposite!

It also helps if you are in a big metropolitan area with multiple airports and you don't mind which airport you fly out of. You should look at flights from all airports within a convenient driving distance from your home. For example, if you live in San Francisco, you should look at flights out of the airports in Oakland and San Jose in addition to ones leaving out of San Francisco.

Holiday travel requires a different kind of flexibility. For Thanksgiving, most people tend to fly out on Wednesday and come back Sunday or Monday, so try to avoid those days if you can. If you plan on spending a few weeks away for Christmas, try booking a flight out for the first or second week in December since prices will go up the closer the flight day is to the 25th. Another option is to fly on the actual holiday itself -- my husband and I have flown on Christmas morning for the last few years and we see better prices on that day than the day before (Christmas Eve).

Tip 3: Research the web

There are lots of travel search engines on the internet -- it's hard to know which one to use! Some respected websites are Kayak, Mobissimo and Bing. These are not booking sites but aggregators that pull prices from multiple airlines and travel providers’ databases, let you easily sort the information so you can find the exact flight that you want, and then send you directly to the source to complete your purchase.. Kayak and Bing also allow you to run the same search through multiple sites like Travelocity, Expedia, Hotwire and Priceline all at once – these will pop up in different windows, so you can easily do a direct comparison.

Kayak has been our favorite flight search website for the last few years, but I recommend that you try each of them to see which one you are most comfortable using and which one is easiest for you to find the best prices.

Each of the websites have additional tools that can make it easier to find good deals. For example, Kayak has a handy chart that tells you the special fees for each airline. You can automatically add baggage fees to the list of prices if you know how many bags you are checking in for your flight. Kayak also has a special "weekend" search that quickly shows you the best fares over every weekend in a specific month. The website also has "Fare Charts" that show you in a graph how the price has changed for a specific itinerary over the last 90 days.

Bing (Microsoft's travel website, which bought and integrated Farecast.com) also has fare history and takes it to the next level by predicting if the current price is going to go up or down or stay the same, and advising you if you should "buy now" or hold off for a better deal.

Priceline still has a "name your own price" feature that may provide even better discounts but may involve multiple layovers and early/late flight times.

Even if you find a good deal through one of these aggregator sites, you should still check directly on the website of the airline with the best deal, because they may have a even better deal that you can only find on their website. It's also helpful to know that fares for Southwest Airlines can only be found on southwest.com so you should always check that website too if you know they fly to your destination city.

Tip 4: Use a fare tracker

If you start looking early enough, you can use websites like Kayak and Bing to track fares – meaning you can punch in a departure and return date for a specific destination and they will continuously monitor the price and send you an email alert when it drops and/or rises.

Even after you buy a ticket, you can still use Yapta to continue tracking the fare -- if the price goes down below what you paid, you may be eligible for a voucher or credit from the airline for the price difference. There is a cost to re-book your flight for the lower price, so Yapta will only alert you when the refund is greater than the fee. This gives you some peace of mind if you are worried that you are booking too early and think that the price might drop a lot.

Tip 5: You may get a better deal from a travel agent

There are still some benefits in booking with a travel agent, especially if you have a complex itinerary with multiple destinations or are traveling in a big group. The agent may have good business connections in a certain destination and can arrange for transfers, hotel upgrades, discounts and other conveniences that you wouldn’t otherwise be able to get if you did things on your own through a website.

Most importantly, if something goes wrong during your trip -- like for example you miss a flight -- the agent will be the one to straighten things out for you. Or if for some reason you need to cancel part or all of your trip, it’s easier for a travel agent to void a booking, something which is either very difficult or impossible to do if you booked online.

If you’re just buying a simple domestic flight from Point A to Point B, chances are you’re going to be able to find the best savings online. But if you’re going abroad, some travel agents have cheaper deals because of special relationships with airlines and providers. The best thing to do is shop: get a couple of quotes from some trusted travel agents and then see if you can find a better price online.