Everyone wants to save money while traveling. You want to make sure you get the best deal possible and the first place alot of people look is the flight. Is it the cheapest, best price I can get? Why does it keep changing? How do I know I got the best deal? Well here are my 5 best tips to find the best prices on your flights.
Consider which airport you can use. Sometimes looking at smaller or larger airports can find you better rates. I have seem smaller regional airports have flights cheaper going from A connecting in B and onto C than the part of the flight from B to C would be. This is because of contracted promotions to try and get people to fly from the smaller airports so they can keep the flights they have.
This is also true when looking at where you are going. Do you need LAX or will Bob Hope (Burbank) or John Wayne (Santa Ana) or Ontario work? Sometimes looking around where you are going may get you a better price, better arrival time or both.
Look at different days. If you have some flexibility you can save on your trip. Not every flight runs everyday, so a great price might only be available on a Tuesday. By the way the customary highest priced days are Sunday and Friday because of business travelers. The cheapest days to fly are usually Tuesday, Wednesday and Saturday. That being said If you are headed to a tropical location Saturday may not be the cheapest.
Use a flight price tracking app. Apps like Hipmunk can let you know when it thinks you should buy. They are not always right but they usually aren't totally wrong. A good travel Agent can also do this by tracking the pricing or even getting bulk rates or consolidator rates that can save you.
Lastly pick a price that you feel comfortable with and when it reaches that price book it. I say this because it can go up and down many times before a trip. A recent survey found domestic flight prices can change as many as 15 times a day based on seat availability, flight availability, flight searches, time of day people usually book, connection bookings, promotions, statistical analysis of middle seat availability, .......
Oh and a bonus, once you book you have 24 hours to cancel if a better rate comes up. After the 24 hours stop looking! It is like roulette, never look back after you cash out.