It's Sunday which means it's time for another episode of Gunnarolla University.
Synchronizerman wants to know about how to plan a trip abroad if you're on a budget?
Well, there are tons of steps involved in planning a trip, but in today's lesson I wanted to focus on booking flights and how I use Google to find the best fares.
Class is in session.
First of all, time for a paradigm shift.
Don't tell yourself you're looking for the cheapest fare, you're looking for the best available fare that you are comfortable paying.
With the exception of Budget Airlines and low cost carriers, which tend to have more fixed pricing.
When it comes to major airlines, the price of flying can fluctuate so much that it's almost impossible to know when you'll get the absolute cheapest price.
That being said, there are optimal times to book your flight.
A study by Cheapair.com, which I'll link to in the description box below.
Found that 21 to 105 days before you have to leave is the prime booking window where you'll find the best fares for a flight.
There is no such thing as a last minute day of deal, so make sure you organize, because booking your flights last minute is not a good idea.
Now when it comes to when you should fly.
Historically speaking, mid-week, that's Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, generally have lower fares than a Friday, Sunday, or Monday departure when you'll find more business and vacation travel.
If you know where you're going, you might also want to research when the low season or the rainy season is.
Although it's always a rainy season when I'm involved.
Again, these are general tips but a good starting point when you're researching flights.
So, how do you go about finding the best fare when there are so many different airlines?
Well, there are basically three ways to do this.
You can book through a travel agent, they're usually very knowledgeable and might have access to whole sale deals that you won't find online.
Or if you wanna have more control, you can book the flight yourself by doing research online.
You can do it through a third party booking website, like Expedia or Priceline.
These sites will allow you to compare different airlines, buy package deals, and make your bookings through the site.
Or if you're like me and you want full control and you'd rather make your booking directly with the airline.
You can use a flight aggregator like Skyscanner or Google flights.
I love Google flights.
It's got everything you need and a really easy to use interface, it's the perfect tool for research and discovery.
Unlike other Google owned websites.
Let's say that you know your destination, but your dates are flexible and you want to find the best fare.
Well, you put in your destination and if you look in the calendar, you can see how much the flight will cost if you were to book today.
On the other hand, if you know the dates you can travel but you don't know where you wanna go.
Just put the dates in and Google flights will suggest some destinations.
You can even filter your results based on the type of travel you wanna do, the number of stopovers, your price range, or the airline you wanna fly with.
If you collect loyalty points, as you should.
Keep in mind that a lower price usually involves fare restrictions and connections, which means a longer travel time.
If you're not in a rush to book, you can set up an email alert and Google flights will let you know if the price changes.
Once you found a price that you're okay with, Google can take you directly to the airline's website to complete the booking.
There are some other great resources for tracking flights and finding flight deals.
Hopper is a really great mobile app that does a lot of the things that Google flights can do.
It can track flights, offer predictions, and it has hotel bookings.
And there are a ton of websites out there that keep track of really cheap deals and mistake fares and I'll link to them in the description box below.
If you're in Canada, you need to follow nextdeparture.ca, they're posting tons of deals all the time.
Now, once you booked your flight, keep an eye on it for the next 24 hours.
Most major airlines will allow you to cancel without any penalty 24 hours after you book a flight.
If the fare doesn't change in that time, my number one tip is to close your browser window and never check again.
The price might go down, it might go up.
But after 24 hours, there's not much you can do, so I don't think it's worth knowing.
So, those are just some tips for finding good flight deals.
If you have any of your own, let us know in the comments below, and if there's anything you wanna learn in an upcoming class, let me know.
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