Travel Tuesday

Welcome back to another Travel Tuesday post.  I got some great feedback about this new series on my social media and I’m really happy that I decided to create it!  There are so many tips and tricks that I have been learning recently about booking cheaper flights, so for today I decided to share some of them with all of you.  You might already know these or maybe you will learn something new, but either way I hope that it helps.

One of the easiest and best things that you can do when looking up flights is to search the web in private mode/incognito.  This basically means that none of the information will be tracked.  The problem with searching publicly is that based on your cookies, flight rates can and will increase when the site recognizes that a specific route is being searched repeatedly.  This is done to lure you into booking the flight before “the prices increase more.”  Trust me, this has definitely happened to me one too many times. I have searched for flights one day and then by the next morning when I search again I see the price has already gone up so quickly.  I get scared that if I wait too long the price will be too high for me to book. I’m pretty sure that this has happened to you as well.  Make sure the next time you need to look up flights to do it in incognito mode, whether it’s from your phone or computer.

Always check more than one airport.  I live in Jersey so for me it’s easier to fly in and out of Newark, but sometimes I find cheaper flights for LaGuardia airport in New York.  Also, just as an example with my Ireland trip, it was cheaper for me to fly into Shannon airport and take a bus to Galway than it was for me to fly right into Dublin.  It all depends on where you are going, but I think it’s definitely worth looking into any and all possible airports/routes.  Sometimes an alternate route is best. Another great thing is to try booking off-season trips, which basically means that you won’t be traveling during a time when tons of tourists will be traveling too.  Of course there will always be tourists, regardless the time of year, but do some research to find out the best and most inexpensive times to visit a new place.  For Ireland, November was the perfect time since their main tourist season is during the summer months. I guarantee that if I had booked my trip in July or August, my flight and hotels would have been much more expensive.

Before setting anything in stone, play around with different departure days. Majority of the time it will be cheaper to leave on a weekday, but that’s not always true.  There’s been this myth that Tuesdays are the cheapest days, but that hasn’t been the case for me every single time.  You can easily get an overview of prices for an entire month by using sites like Sky Scanner.  It’s actually pretty crazy how much the numbers can vary from day to day.  I used to be that person who was so impatient to book a flight that I typically settled for one of the first few that I would find.  It’s definitely worth taking the time to fully research and see all possible options before spending your money.  Whether you’re saving yourself a couple bucks or a few hundred, it all helps in the end.  Trust me.

Look into flying with budget airlines opposed to the major ones.  There are more of these in Europe than America, which brings me to my next point. When traveling abroad, don’t forget to check out non U.S. airlines.  For my flight to Sweden, I saved myself some money by booking directly with Norwegian Air opposed to United or another U.S. airline.  Norwegian Air is one of the biggest budget airlines in Europe.  The perks might not be as great as flying with the majors, but your ticket cost will be lower.  This was my first time doing this and it definitely won’t be my last. If it weren’t for my friend telling me about it, I probably would not have known.  Also, a few other great sites to check out for flights are Kayak, Trip Advisor and even Google Flights. I used to only use Expedia, so learning about other resources has been really great!

I’m sure that there are even more ways to find amazing deals and as I learn more about them I will make sure to fill you all in.  If you know of any cool tips & tricks for cheaper flights, please share them with me too.  Thanks for checking out this post and I hope the information was useful.

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