Most airlines mark a certain percentage of seats on each flight as “low fare tickets”; many of these seats are booked by travelers through Travelocity, Expedia, cheaptickets.com and other low fare internet bookers. To find low fare tickets at the last minute, follow these guidelines.
• Book flights on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Saturday; look for flights that depart either before 7:00am or after 7:00pm. These days and times typically have a greater chance of available low fare tickets due low passenger volume. Mondays and Sundays are typically the busiest days to fly and thus it is likely that all low fare tickets will be booked.
• Be flexible on your departure date, it will increase the chance of finding a lower fare.
• Search different airports in your area. For example, flights out of Miami are in generally 10-20% more expensive than flights out of Fort Lauderdale, a city only 45 minutes north. Smaller airports generally have cheaper landing fees for the airlines and these savings are shown in the ticket price.
• Search multiple airlines and low fare booking services such as:
FareBeater.com
CheapTickets.com
Hotwire.com
Site59.com
Many of these low fare bookers have “Last minute” travel sections with special fares.
• Always sign up a frequent flyer miles membership even if you are only flying on the airline once. It’s free and members generally receive priority for low fare tickets and seat locations.
• Search for flights throughout the day. Last minute ticket prices are constantly fluctuating in price due to canceled and delayed flights, changes in demand, and special events around the country.
• Keep flight taxes in mind when comparing published airfares. Some services include air taxes in their prices and some don’t.
• After you find a low airfare, visit a bid-your-own-price airline booker like Priceline.com. These sites do not allow you to know the airline or time of your flight before agreeing to purchase. If you can live with that, take the lowest fare you found previously and bid on a ticket price 10% less than that fare. This will most likely be the lowest fare possible on that particular route.
