A lot of people planning an adventure on a budget make the mistake of thinking that they can't afford a particular destination because of the cost of the airfare. Or, they put very little effort into finding the best fare, and end up with not a lot left over for nice accommodation and touring experiences. This post lists my top tips for airfare searching in order to get the lowest price and best value possible.
1. No-frills airlines
Sounds simple, but in my experience many don't consider this a genuine option, for a number of reasons. They may fear that a no-frills airline couldn't possibly be as safe as a full service airline, or else they've heard horror stories about late flights and uncomfortable service.
The first one is a reasonable concern, but all airlines in Australia (and all developed countries: check your local regulations for more information) have to pass rigorous safety standards before they are allowed to fly; mechanical safety, pilot expertise and other basic standards are just as high for budget airlines as they are for fulls service ones. If there are even slight problems, CASA (the Civil Aviation Safety Authority) will suspend the airline; the recent Tiger incident is probably still fresh in everyone's mind at this stage.
The second concern can be totally dismissed with a 'you get what you pay for' argument. No-frills airlines are just that; there are no plush add-ons, it's just a service designed to get you from A to B. It may be helpful to just think of it as a giant flying bus; you've never had your own personal capsule or snacks handed out by smiling beauties on your daily commute, yet it gets you where you need to go just fine, and there are a number of ways to make it more comfortable by yourself. I have read in a number of forums some very snarky bad reviews of cheap airlines; the image that springs to mind when reading them is that of a consistently cranky fat-cat businessman who expects five star service just for continuing to exist and thinks they're more important than anyone else. The only time I feel bad for these aforementioned reviewers is when they're families on a budget who are flying no-frills in order to see family or get medical treatment or something, but that's a whole other story.
There are a number of no-frills airlines all over the world, flying both domestic and international routes. Personally, I've had good experiences with Jetstar (http://www.jetstar.com/au/en/home) and Tiger (http://www.tigerairways.com/), and would like to try AirAsia (http://www.airasia.com/au/en/home.html) some time soon. A comprehensive list of the world's no-frills airlines (usually referred to as low-cost carriers, or LCCs) can be found on Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_low-cost_airlines).
In terms of online search and booking functions, like most airline pages, fares on dates either side of your chosen dates will also be displayed, and you can choose from other airports at your destination in order to investigate cheap alternatives.
2. Be flexible with dates
Not everyone has this luxury; many of us work in jobs like retail or finance where available holiday times are pretty strictly limited. But if you have any choice, take advantage of it; airfare prices fluctuate according to 'seasons', and there are definitely cheap and expensive times to travel to any given destination. The three seasons are low, shoulder, and peak, low season being the cheapest time to travel, and peak season being the most expensive. Keep in mind that depending on the length of your trip, you may be leaving in low season and returning in peak season, so this will compromise your airfare price.
The two hemispheres' summers/official holiday periods are the most expensive in which to travel (early June to late August, and early December to early January). The low season is usually mid January to late March, and then September to November. Periods in between are known as the shoulder season, and there are still a number of cheap flights to be had in this time; airfares will often be at sale prices on random dates in the shoulder season, to help fill up flights that fall either side of peak holiday time and traditional cheap times.
The seasons can vary from country to country, so for more information google the name of your country and 'airfare seasons'.
3. Travel on less busy days of the week
This is a micro-level strategy of the abovementioned date planning. No matter where you are in the world, there are certain days of the week which are more expensive to fly out on than the days around them, because of regular demand from passengers such as business people and commuters. For example, you'll find it's more expensive to fly out on a Friday afternoon or evening, because that's the time when many people are finished work for the week, and they all want to fly out as soon as possible to maximise their getaway time or their time back at home. It can also be expensive to fly on a Sunday night for the same reason. In my experience, the cheapest days to fly are Wednesday and Saturday.
When booking online, click the 'flexible dates' option in the search box, to show you days of the week around your preferred date. The fare difference can be hundreds of dollars (based on a random selection of domestic and international flights from Australia) between different days of the week at the same time of year.
4. Travel to an alternative port in your destination
Many major destinations have more than one international airport, and sometimes choosing a different port of arrival in your search for the best fare can make a difference. Your online flight search should ask you to pick between airports when you put in a city name; alternatively, check out Wikipedia's list of airports by city (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_with_more_than_one_airport).
I tested this out by searching for flights on an aggregator site (sites that resell and represent all airlines, much like a travel agent) from Melbourne to Paris, using the same dates for each flight; the difference in fares for a return fare was nearly $200. I then did a similar search for flights to London, and the difference was around $400. In addition to this, many budget airlines only fly in to the secondary airports; this is one of their ways of saving money.
5. Creative route planning
This is absolutely my favourite way of saving money on getting to a destination, and something I consider rather a speciality of mine. It's possible to save money with alternative routes for most trips, and is well worth the effort of putting in several sets of data to airfare search engines, or calculating the cost and timing of a combined plane and rail, or bus and plane trip.
My latest foray into creative route planning happened mid last year, when I had just finished up a Christmas casual (summer) job, and was desperate to visit friends in Canada in the limited time and on the small budget I had. My first move was to go online to an airfare search engine and put in my preferred dates, my home town, and my destination (Toronto). It told me it would cost $2300 to make that trip. I had about a $2000 total budget, so I looked into what similar routes were cheap or on sale, what seemed to be the cheapest places in the world to fly to and from, and what the public transport networks were like in North America.
What I ended up doing was taking a no-frills flight from my home town to Melbourne (the closest big city), a sale flight from Melbourne to Los Angeles, a no-frills flight from Los Angeles to Buffalo, and a bus from Buffalo to Toronto. This set of flights and buses cost me $1400, and I didn't spend much extra time at all in transit, although I did decide to have a stopover for a couple of nights in Los Angeles.
Ideas for creative route planning:
- Check out what routes have really good sale prices, and how far each port is from your location and destination
- See if you can save by doing a portion of your journey on a train or bus
- Consider breaking up your route from a direct or one-stop flight, in order to cut down on the airfare (the most expensive part)
- When your route is going to be broken up anyway, consider going a different way, i.e. stopping over in a different country, or if going halfway around the world, go the other direction
- Rather than thinking of your route as between two cities, look for different fares between the two countries or continents, and then cheap domestic fares between the cities
I hope I've explained these principles clearly; good luck on finding the best value route and fare for your next adventure.
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