Summer is a hot time for vacations and travel, and the post-pandemic world once again offers us routes to literally any of the most interesting and exciting places on the planet. The main thing is that we need time and money for this. Yes, money is probably the most important thing for this, don't you agree?
While the volume of passenger traffic by the end of 2024 has reached pre-pandemic levels for the first time, many people still cannot afford the prices at which airlines sell their tickets. So, all sorts of hacks to help us find cheap airfare are actually more relevant today than ever.
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Air traffic is back nowadays, but many people still can't afford plane tickets—so hacks for cheap airfare are more relevant than ever
Image credits: Global Residence Index
The personal finance expert claims that today, airlines have a dynamic pricing model with patterns that could be discovered
It's interesting what experts have to say about this. For example, in this video, Australian bloggers Lachlan and Jaxon Fairbairn invited Fred Harrington, a personal finance expert at the digital savings platform SaveMyCent, to figure out whether there really are special patterns that most airlines operate by.
So, according to Fred Harrington, if you thought that online flight prices were quite random, then you would definitely be wrong. In fact, most platforms have special patterns of price updates. These patterns can be discovered and, in fact, be made to work for you. Although, in the process, you will have to face a couple of inconveniences.
Image credits: Dave Weatherall / Unsplash (not the actual photo)
For example, to find really cheap tickets for almost any flight, it’s worth getting up early. The thing is that, according to Harrington, airlines don’t want the influx of buyers to crash their sites during peak hours, so the cheapest tickets can be found, for example, during the wee hours of midnight to 6 a.m.
Image credits: Pedro Gabriel Miziara / Unsplash (not the actual photo)
The cheapest tickets, according to an expert, can be found on airline websites during the time span of 3 a.m. to 5 a.m.
Moreover, you can find the most ‘delicious morsels’ during the time interval when literally all people—even avid travelers—prefer to sleep in to see the sweetest dreams. In other words, between 3 a.m. and 5 a.m. "By booking during these quiet hours, you're often catching prices before the morning rush of bookings drives them back up," Fred Harrington says in a video.
Image credits: 雲翔 葉 / Unsplash (not the actual photo)
In addition, based on his experience, the expert says that it’s better to buy tickets on Tuesday or Wednesday than any other day of the week, especially the weekend. This is simply because that's how dynamic pricing models are designed to work. Accordingly, if people have figured out these principles—why not put these principles to work for themselves?
Well, if you want to find tickets for a domestic flight, then the ideal time for booking would be 6-8 weeks before the flight. This is the time when you can find the best results in terms of an optimal price. The most important thing is not to give up if you can't find what you want on one of the days. It’s quite possible that the next night or early morning, you will be lucky.
Image credits: Marina Juli / Unsplash (not the actual photo)
The main thing is to search for the tickets in a private browser or at least in incognito mode
One of the most important requirements is to search for tickets in browser incognito mode—to prevent the system from tracking your habits and pushing the most convenient, but not the cheapest, options. Modern airline pricing models really work on the stock market principle, and the days of the ‘80s, when there were only a couple of price ranges, are long gone.
For example, the Fletcherr blog says that Qatar Airways, one of the largest airlines of our time, had to manage price optimization across 160+ routes and over 13,400 flights using demand patterns with no historical precedent. The article claims that this resulted in a 224% increase in arrivals.
Gradually, airlines are involving AI in the process of price regulation to make this mechanism even more efficient. But cheap tickets will still be available at certain times and on certain days.
People in the comments also shared various personal hacks for buying plane tickets. For example, someone thought that you shouldn't buy on Monday nights or Tuesdays (by the way, this contradicts the cited expert advice), but, literally everyone agreed that incognito mode or using a private browser was a must.
Also, according to some responders, late February has historically been a good time to buy plane tickets in advance. This happens because airlines always want to ensure good cash flow during the slowest time of the year. By the way, do you, our dear readers, have your own hacks for ordering tickets, too? If so, why not share them in the comments and discuss them with others?
People in the comments agreed that there are numerous patterns in searching for ticket deals, and shared some of their personal hacks
