Looking for cheap flights To catch the best price on flights, you don't always have to buy them a year in advance. Each destination has its own timing.
For example, when planning a trip within your own country, the most important thing is not to go to extremes: don't leave booking to the last day, but don't do it too early either. The best option is to buy a ticket a month before departure.
For Asia, it's ambiguous. While the national currency was relatively stable, it made sense to think about the flight a year in advance. But now no one wants to take risks, and tickets don't increase that much closer to the departure date. You can buy them six months in advance or two weeks before, and the price will differ slightly.
But flights to Europe are better planned in advance. The further away the departure date, the cheaper the tickets. Six months is a good timeframe. The same story with America.
As for long-haul flights to Australia or New Zealand, the rule 'the earlier, the better' works 100 percent. Tickets bought a year in advance will be half the price of last-minute bookings.
It is widely believed that tickets go up in price on Tuesday night, but that's only partly true. International flights become more expensive, while domestic flights are almost unaffected. However, if you have the option to fly out and return on Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday, rather than other days, a bit more money will remain on your bank card. The reason is that these are less popular and therefore cheaper days to fly. After all, business trips usually start on Mondays, and vacations on Fridays or Saturdays to maximize days off.
If you want to save money on a trip, you'll have to spend a little more time planning it. Compare prices on different flight search sites, play around with various convenient tools designed by the teams of these portals. For example, there is a service on a special site called 'Low Price Calendar' that allows you to determine in advance the days when the cheapest flights will be available for purchase.
Very often, good tickets can be grabbed at a significant discount, but you need to do it in time before they are all taken. To not miss the moment, it is worth subscribing to newsletters from various airlines and search sites that notify about their promotions.
The price of a ticket changes every 15 minutes for various reasons. It's like stocks on the exchange. If you have already decided exactly where you want to go and are waiting for the right moment to book the flight, some sites have a convenient service: you can subscribe to email updates about changes in flight prices so you don't have to refresh the site repeatedly.
Accumulating bonus miles is a good idea, but sometimes it seems completely unattainable. To avoid forcing yourself to always fly with only one airline, it's worth finding out which alliances the carriers you use most often belong to. That way you can collect miles faster. To do this, you need to get cards for these alliances and enter your travel data into a special form on the website.
If you fly very infrequently, miles may expire. But there is another way: get a credit card that allows you to accumulate miles by paying at grocery stores and gas stations. Various banks offer such programs – read the terms on their websites and choose the one that suits you best.
Search sites allow you to find flights with one or two stops, which are often cheaper than direct flights. The journey is longer and less comfortable, but for a good price, it is quite bearable. The main thing is to make sure the layover is about two to three hours. If the gap between connections is shorter, there is a risk of missing the second flight or at least being very stressed. If the gap is longer, you may get tired from waiting at the airport.
However, search sites do not search for connections involving two low-cost carriers. But you can do this yourself. Suppose you are flying to Paris. First, find your entry point: check all promotions on all sites and choose the city you can fly to cheapest. This city – often Budapest or Krakow – will be your entry point. Then, investigate all flights to Paris on the websites of low-cost airlines flying from your entry point.
Finding a good transfer
When traveling around Europe, remember that sometimes it is cheaper to get from your entry point by train or bus than by plane. Five minutes of searching online and you will easily find websites of various carriers to compare prices and determine which option is more convenient and cost-effective. In this case, it is best to search in English or in the language of your entry point, if you know it.
Sometimes the trip may be slightly cheaper but clearly more tiring. Here it is important to decide what you want more: to save money, to have an adventure, or to get to your destination in the most optimal way.
Most European railway companies offer various passes and discounts for those who book tickets in advance. For example, on a specialized site you can find the cost of a special pass valid for travel across different European countries. Then you need to compare them with standard tickets and decide if it makes sense to use this service.
Staying in free accommodation
The couchsurfing site is something like a social network for travelers. People create their accounts, fill them in English, add photos. Some are ready to host guests from other countries – others do not want to spend money on accommodation and are looking for such hospitable people.
To find free accommodation, you need to fill out an application – friendly and cheerfully talk about the purpose of your trip, and also specify the city and dates you plan to visit. Try to think and indicate how you could be useful to those people who would want to invite you as a guest. For example, you are ready to teach them how to cook borscht or read Pushkin to them in the original language.
Couchsurfing is a special philosophy of travel. It is important to be a good guest: not to bother when they are tired of you, to be clean, not to be arrogant, to try to be helpful, to bring souvenirs. Then you can make friends with the person you are visiting, and they will show you their favorite places in their city. Be sure to communicate with your host on social networks, try to understand if they are a good person, find out if you will be comfortable together for several days. Trust your intuition and remember that couchsurfing is not a dating site; it exists precisely for cultural exchange.
Using museum discounts
Students, minors, pensioners, disabled people, military personnel, tourism workers, journalists, and some other privileged categories of citizens often receive discounts when visiting museums. But for this you need to have official identification documents with you. Moreover, abroad they must have international status – for example, ISIC for students or a press card of a member of the Union of Journalists. Take care in advance to obtain the necessary documents, and you can save a lot during your trip.
Many museums have free admission days. Sometimes for a certain category of people – for example, for students, and sometimes for everyone. Before your trip, go to the websites of the museums you are interested in and check if the free days fall on the dates of your trip. Just remember that on free days there are always huge queues and crowds of visitors, so you usually can't study anything calmly.
Almost all large cities have companies that offer free tours in English, for example – Free Walking Tour or Greeter. If you search carefully, you can find many free walks in Russian as well. The main thing is to sign up in advance.
Keep in mind that the volunteers leading the tours usually expect tips of around 10-20 euros. No one will take this money from you by force, but not paying may simply be awkward. So sometimes a paid tour ends up being cheaper.
Olga CHEREDNICHENKO.
Based on materials from "Lenta.ru"