Whenever you visit somewhere these days, it’s probable that you’re going to take an airplane there, be it near or far, and at some point your going to book and purchase a flight. What a lot of people don’t know, or aren’t bothered about, is that there are tons of different ways to get discounts and airline deals for just about anywhere you could care to mention. Here’s a couple of obvious ways to make those deals, and save some spending money at the same time.

Book at least 2 weeks in advance, especially for domestic flights, as the closer you get to the date for flying the higher the prices are and the harder it is to find any airline deals. Couple this with the little known fact that airlines usually will try and undercut the competition at specific times each day – 10 am, 12.30 pm and 4.00 pm, apart from the weekend, only once per day on the weekends after 5.00 Saturday). So, search about 3 to 4 hours after these times, as it will take that long for the pricing to get to the engines, and you’ll probably be able to pick up a lower priced deal even if you are flying at a moment’s notice. For international flights, the same applies except even more so – the further out you can buy the better, and depending on where you are going you may be able to pick up some excellent deals on fly/drive programs too.

Where and when possible, travel at off times of the week, Saturday included, to get pricing breaks. Friday and Sunday are the most traveled days, so if you can work your schedule around so that you’re not traveling on those 2 main days then you should be able to pick up a deal for wherever you’re going.

Start your search with the airline websites themselves. As mentioned several times during the week airlines do deals first on their own sites, then filtering thru to other sites that list the deals. Another reason for this is that sometimes airlines have ‘private’ deals, available only through their own sites, so that the airline deals won’t show up on the search engines until much later, if at all.
Add all these to the fact that there’s a little known thing called a “guaranteed airfare policy” which basically states that if they sell other tickets for less after you bought your ticket, they have to refund/credit the difference to you. So have fun!