You have been bitten by the travel bug! The urge to get out of here is very strong. You need that well deserved long vacation. You know when to travel. You have the dates in mind. But do not know where to go. Worry not! Your potential destination is just a click away!
But one thing that bothers you is that fight tickets cost more than your budget or they seem too pricey. Let us tell you that there are many ways to get cheap flight tickets to anywhere you want to go.
Traveling cheap today is very easy. We all know someone who gets bargains, travels all the time or visited dreamed places that seem inaccessible for your pocket at first. How can you travel cheap? Discover below all the tricks you need to know. Investing a bit of time in the search for accommodation and transportation (the two highest costs when traveling) you will also find incredible offers.
Invest time or invest money
If you do not have time to decide or plan, you will pay more. If you invest your time in planning, It will come out cheaper.
Tips for Traveling Cheap
Finding bargains for trips is a matter of being a little smart and flexible in:
- where to go
- when to travel
- how to get to the place you want to visit
Whether you’re doing all-inclusive trips or you like to travel by yourself and plan your vacation destinations and activities yourself, follow the below tips and tricks to save money while traveling.
1. Be Flexible
The trick that always works for cheap travel is to be flexible, either in:
- destination
- date
- way of travel
Being flexible does not mean having to be flexible only and exclusively on dates. There are destinations that are much cheaper, there are more expensive seasons or more expensive ways to travel.
Here are some examples to clarify the idea:
- The daily costs in Canada are much higher than what it will cost you to travel through Thailand
- Flights during the weekend are not similarly priced to the flights during the weekdays
- People in Sri Lanka move in tuk-tuk instead of a taxi, and taking a tuk-tuk will be much cheaper than a taxi
- Traveling directly from Madrid to New York can be more expensive than making a stopover in another place, for example, Miami
Anyway, you would want to book Air Canada cheap flights, where a hassle-free booking can be made from Faremart.co which further offers many deals and discounts, lowering the airfare.
2. Ignore the myths
Ignore all the myths that circulate there. They will drive you crazy.
There are many myths, for example:
- If you buy your flight on Thursday, it will be much cheaper
- The cheapest day of the week to fly is Tuesday
- The airfares are changed every Thursday at X hour
There is no specific date where your flights are always cheaper. Nor is there a rule about what time to buy cheap flights. Just as consumers try different ways, so do airlines. They test a thousand and one methods to increase their prices, and they change their algorithms constantly to adapt them to the market. Evidently, flying during the week will be cheaper than flying from Friday to Sunday, but simply by the law and the person’s rights of supply and demand. Many more people will want to spend a weekend away than spending a few days during the week on a vacation. There is no magic and exact formula to always have cheap flights. Keep applying these simple tips and become The low-cost travel ninja.
3. Consider lesser-known destinations
Keep in mind not only cheap places to travel. Consider also the smaller places that are close to your desired destination. This has to do with flexibility. If you do not care where to travel, choose destinations that:
- are not in trend
- are little known
- are cheap because of the living cost in that country
Those destinations will be much cheaper! Here you must take into account the travel time to see if it is cheaper. For example, if you travel to Barcelona, it will be much cheaper if you stay in Lloret de Mar or Blanes. Hotels in those areas have very different offers to Barcelona. Of course, your time in the big city will be conditioned to the available transportation schedules. You must decide if it compensates you.
4. Travel with a plan
Something that seems against my rule number one, but that has nothing to do with it. Once you have decided your destination, it is better to plan the activities, the accommodation. Once you have planned where you will stay and how you will move, only the “open or pending” day-to-day expenses will remain. You should inform yourself a little about the prices of the area and establish an average budget for food and activities. I strongly advise having a budget. If you have a budget, you will know what you can spend and you will not leave much of it. If you do not have a budget, without realizing how much you are spending, the costs will have skyrocketed! Do you remember those party nights where you got home without a penny? Well, it’s the same if you travel without a budget: you do not realize it and you spent a lot more money than you imagined. This brings us to the next point.
5. Book in advance
Here I do not speak only about accommodation and flights. If you want to find accommodation at the last minute, it will surely be more expensive. In some places, it will even be impossible. The unavailability or increase in prices also applies to activities. Did you know that to visit the Alhambra in Granada (Spain) you must book a month and a half in advance? If you have to get vaccinated to enter a country and you forget that, it will cost much more than if you had done it at the right time. This also involves planning how you will move. You should plan at least to know how to get to the airport, and from the airport to your accommodation. I still remember that years ago I lost a flight simply because mistook a terminal at the airport. Look for some information and make sure you arrive at the airport in advance.
6. Buy your flight in advance
They say that the best time to buy a flight is about 2 months before. So do not wait until the last moment to buy the flights, but do not buy them too soon. What is the ideal time to buy flights? In theory, about 6-8 weeks before your flight (3 months if it is the high season). Supposedly, that is the time when airlines adjust their prices. The concrete answer is that everything will depend on the company and destination, but about 2 months the price is usually a tight price. I assure you that it will be much cheaper than the weeks or days before flying. (Unless you find a last minute offer). Personally, I never managed to take a last minute offer because it was never adapted to my tastes or needs at the time, but it is still a pending challenge.
7. Be smart in the way you move
If you fly with low-cost airlines, keep in mind your luggage restrictions. And there are absolute rules that do not fail you:
- Travel light and you will surely have the best price.
- Avoid paying extra for a seat or food if you do not need it.
In this aspect, I recommend that you always read the conditions before buying any ticket (with the company with which you are going to fly) as large Norwegian airlines offer low-cost tickets on long flights, for example to Thailand. In those economic tickets, there is no luggage or food, so you must calculate if you want to pay what extra they ask for, if you need another type of ticket, or you adapt and fly with hand luggage and take food with you. Maybe a train from Madrid to Paris seems more expensive at first than a flight with a low-cost carrier, but once you add your luggage and travel costs to your accommodation the train would have been cheaper. Always check the conditions of your transport.
8. Save on accommodation
The two highest costs when traveling are accommodation and transportation. In any case, you can lower this cost: How? First, look at what type of accommodation is most common in the place where you will travel. Are you going to Ireland? You should consider Bed and Breakfast. In Vietnam, homestays are much cheaper (and common) than hotels:
- Once you are clear about the accommodation, use accommodation price comparison websites
- The price comparison will allow you to see if booking the hotel on a different website is cheaper
- Check all the different prices of the same accommodation that is on the Internet and put them in one place
9. Know where to search
Currently, there are many tools to compare and find cheap flights. It is practically a children’s game. Most popular among them are Skyscanner, Kayak, Google Flights, and Trabber. They are very easy to use. You put the departure airport, the destination you want to travel, the round trip dates, and then you start to filter by schedules, services, direct flights or with stopovers, suitcases billing, and so on. You can tune the shot to the fullest. You can even search by destination or the cheapest month of the entire year. With some patience and a few minutes, you can find a real bargain.
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