By Jennifer Hudock
Buying airplane tickets directly through a travel agent or from the airline can put a huge dent in your travel fund. Saving money on airfare is an easy way to increase your travel budget, giving you more cash for sightseeing, fancy restaurants and souvenirs. It's also a must-do for frequent business travelers.
Instructions
Difficulty: Moderately Easy
Step 1
Begin making travel arrangements as early as possible. Give yourself at least a month before your intended travel date, as buying early will get you a cheaper price than waiting until the last minute.
Step 2
Stay flexible when it comes to departure time. Leaving in the middle of the night, as opposed to morning and afternoon flights, isn't always convenient, but you might find cheaper tickets.
Step 3
Plan to leave in the middle of the week or before holidays. Weekends and holidays are the busiest travel times, so airlines increase their prices to yield greater profits. Flying on a weekday or the days before a holiday is cheaper.
Step 4
Compare prices among ticket-sellers or airlines. Online ticket negotiators update their prices throughout the day, and giving yourself time to make their comparison between them before purchasing could score you a great deal on your airfare.
Step 5
Join a travel club. Frequent flyers who are part of travel clubs get great deals on airline tickets, and, when you're traveling regularly, saving money on airfare more than makes up for the cost of club membership. You also can get discounts on hotels, restaurants and attractions.
Step 6
Participate in frequent-flyer-mile programs, and rack up miles to get airline discounts. There are numerous credit-card and even grocery-store programs that offer air miles to their customers, and they add up with every dollar spent.
Step 7
Ask about student and senior-citizen discounts. Many airlines offer discounts to college students, and senior-citizen discounts crop up everywhere you look, so it never hurts to ask.
Step 8
Use an online auction site to negotiate your ticket prices. Regular auction sites host airfare packages at a starting rate and sell to the highest bidder, and reverse-auction sites ask you to name your price, and they decide if that price is feasible.
Step 9
Become a courier. Couriers transport goods for companies, who buy airline seats just so there is a body there to accompany whatever goods are being transported. One major downside to traveling as a courier is that you can take carry-on luggage only, but for a $250 ticket to Paris, it's almost worth the sacrifice. Besides, you can buy clothes when you get there with all the money you saved on airfare.
About the Author:
Jennifer Hudock is an author, editor and freelancer from Pennsylvania. She has upcoming work appearing in two Library of the Living Dead Press anthologies and has been published in numerous print and online journals, including eMuse, Real TV Addict and Strange Horizons. She has a Bachelor of Arts in English/creative writing from Bloomsburg University.
