How to plan a perfect holiday with the cheapest air fare deals and yet not compromise

It feels so good once everything has gone perfectly to plan, the hotel was nice, the itinerary was the best possible, the kids enjoyed the holiday, the wife is taking all the credit of this perfect plan, every thing is so cool isn’t it?

Then back home you start doing the math once again, once the happiness index has dipped to rock bottom after first day at office, and you find out that although everything seem to have been so perfect, the chink in the armour of your bullet proof plan, now when you look back had been the flight tickets. Now that you recalculate, you see that all your planning and budgeting was only for about 60% of the total budget, the 40% you spent on those tickets, you had practically no control upon!

This is where flight price monitoring and multiple probable destinations for a holiday proves to be a better planning model. It’s simple, you do not have to compromise, you just have to understand that you could go to one of many of your dream destinations.

How does this help?  for this you have to know a lot about how airlines determine flight ticket prices, but to cut that short, there are several factors, airlines hedge fuels to protect them from sudden fuel price surges, and the fuel surcharge you pay is based on this future price of fuel, but then there comes periods when the fuel price drops below their hedged price and the airlines have to reduce the surcharge from air fare, thus lowering the airfare suddenly.

Another factor is load dependent pricing for different sectors, and they have statistical analysis for passenger load in sectors where they operate, and there are some phases when the load can suddenly go off and air fares plummet, we as consumers are not always aware of this factor.

Another factor of importance is the fare differential between lean periods and busy periods, for an international destination, this factor varies with tourist season, but when you are flying within your destination country, local seasons, holidays and a lot more can affect prices. So keeping an eye of price fluctuation between all of your planned destinations is what can open your eyes and you can easily see when you should buy tickets.

It is not always true that buying air tickets more than two months in advance helps you get the best deal, but yes, of course this would be the simplest rule to follow if you are unable to keep tracking the fares for a long while.

Another consideration that can reduce your flying cost considerably is buying open jaw tickets, you do not have to get back to the city that you began your holiday from, it is even better to buy tickets back home from a different city, but the problem here is usually the difference between a round trip ticket and two one way tickets forces us to go for a round trip ticket, but then,  you are forced to get back to the initial destination even if you would have been better off flying from the last place you visited.

The Open Jaw ticket discounts come into play in these cases, and an open jaw ticket costs less than two one way tickets, an Open Jaw ticket can be defined as

“A Ticket that takes you from Airport A to Airport B and then you travel by other means to Airport C, and then that same ticket that took you from Airport A to Airport B, takes you back to Airport A from Airport C, and you are ONLY eligible for this discount IF the distance between Airport B and Airport C is shorter than the distance between the shortest leg of your journey that you fly, that is Airport B to Airport C has to be shorter in distance than Airport A to Airport B or Airport C to Airport A, whichever is shorter than the other.”

All booking engines today, including ours at Air Is Fare can recognize Open Jaw itineraries and price your air fare accordingly.

So, to get back to the original discussion, planning an open ended holiday with multiple destinations in mind and opting for the best fit that offers you the maximum savings on air fare, is the best way to plan a holiday, this savings is what you can splurge upon your family during the holiday, instead of wasting it on a few hours of flying that you can do at a much lower price too, if you are planning ahead and watching the prices.

The best option our viewers is use our unique holiday search feature;

All you have to do is enter your home town/airport and a budget you would spend on flying, you could leave that empty too, and if you are sure about your dates, enter your dates, the service will come up with several destinations that have air fares going lower than your budget for a single air ticket, and our up coming feature will allow you to get yourself notified whenever the air fare for your chosen destination falls or spikes.

Isn’t that a wonderful way to keep a tab on the best air fare available? Try the function now.