Travel isn’t free, and that’s why you should look for best air fare deals

Yes, travel isn’t free, and that’s why Air Is Fare urges you to look for cheapest air fares, instead of having to compromise on quality.

Our main feature and focus has always been on “how to plan 10 different holiday destinations at the same time and decide on one based on air fare variations and falls over a period  while ahead of your holiday“.

No, simply booking ahead doesn’t get you the best deal, there are other factors too, local holidays, high tourist seasons and crude price variations affect air fare largely, so keep 10 destinations in mind, keep researching prices and latch on the best price as soon as you see it fall.

But the question always is, how do you know this is air fare is fair enough? where is the historical data to compare and decide? well, not a single OTA or Airlines officially provide such data, but there are some ways of getting a general but interesting data set from the internet. Here you won’t get a Forex data graph like chart straight away, but at least some OTAs like Skyscanner has released a partial list of destinations with their best time to book and possible air fare differences. Check that list here.

But 50 destinations are not enough, there are so many places to go! So what do we do? we are now left with the core principles of flight price modulations. Research conducted on millions of trips in a year on US date revealed that the best time to book a national US flight is 54 days on average. But that might not be you, or your case, there is a pattern but that’s not sacrosanct at all!

One easy thumbs rule that doesn’t help anyone is, the prices are at its stable best, right on the day it opens for booking, and then just at the last minute ( not always ) when there remains a few of those preferred seats unsold, but you usually won’t get to buy a ticket so early up or wouldn’t wait to try your luck till the very last moment.

So what we are left with is an understanding and nothing more. Dividing flight booking time into 5 possible zones since the beginning when an airline starts selling tickets can help us visualise the data a bit.

Zone 1: Usually airlines start selling tickets 11 months in advance or around 335 days in in advance, and initially after the very beginning, for popular flights, the price remains pretty high for a few days and thus, the period between 11 months and 6 and 1/2 months, this is the prime period of choice, you get more flight options, choose between more non-stop flights, better seats still available, entire family seat together and so on, but all at a premium when compared to prices within the safe air fare zone.

Zone 2: This is probably the second best period to fish for the cheapest air fare, the period between 6 1/2 and 3 1/2 months is when the initial stiff price have settled and the trend is already known, that is whether there was indeed a sudden peak or rush in ticket sales or not ( nothing important probably happening there at the destination soon that implies, no Olympics, no World Cups nothing ) has already been felt and thus prices have settled below the hyped price, this is probably not the best you can get, but this the best you would get with still the options available.

Zone 3: the 3 1/2 months to 2 weeks window is the prime booking window, yes I accept, a pretty wide window indeed, and in fact can’t call it even a window at all! But it is true, that between these days, prices typically stay lowest although there are fluctuations and sudden swings too, so “this is when you should start using our service daily and keep checking for the air fares to all destinations from your location for a given budget and date“

Keep following the fares, and I am sure within a few days you’ll get to understand the trend and be able to get a deal that’d be the best you could get.

Combining your already decided plan of choosing between 10 possible destinations and the cheapest air fare between those 10 possible destinations over a period of 30 or more days, you are bound to cut that deal that’ll save you a lot of money that you could actually spend on your holiday that on flying.

To add to the benefits that a well researched booking plan will deal you, here is some bonus tips and tricks by some other travel enthusiasts that can help you get your tickets even cheaper, using air miles and credit card reward points.