How This Simple Tip Can Save You Money on Airfare

I'm sure you've seen the advertisements on television or the banner ad's on the internet. You know the ones that promise to save you big money by buying your airline tickets from their website. Seems like they all claim to save you big money, if you only buy from their website. Well, the two simple tips I'm going to share with you are free. I used these two tips on a recent family vacation to save over $1600 in airfare. You can also save money using these two simple tips. And, it doesn't really matter which website you use to purchase your tickets!

Tip number one. Fly on a Tuesday or Wednesday. Now, I know you have seen or heard this tip before. But it is true. If you are flexible enough in your travel schedule to depart and return on a Tuesday or Wednesday, you will save money on your next flight. You can save between 8% and 10% by just using this tip. Now, that's not a lot of money if you are talking about one person, but if it's a family of four this could easily save you from $80 on up just by being flexible with your dates. This could pay for a night of the hotel expense or another meal out, depending on where you live and your travel destination.

Tip number two requires a little more effort on your part, but can pay big dividends. After checking your local airport for pricing, check nearby airports for prices and departure times to your destination. Departing from a nearby airport can save you anywhere from a few dollars to several hundred dollars. Again, the key here is flexibility. Let me give you an example. We were planning a family vacation to Hawaii in 2007. We knew this a year in advance. We did not have a concrete date set, but we knew that we wanted to leave about the time school dismissed for summer break. We begin looking for airfare about a year in advance just to get an idea on prices. The fare from our local airport was running any where from $780 to $900. About 8 months prior to departure I was checking airfare prices for the local airport (leaving on a Tuesday or Wednesday or course) and the airfare was $780. I checked a neighboring airport (about a 90 minute drive away) and found the tickets for $380 each. We immediately bought 4 tickets and saved $1600 on our airfare. Of course this doesn't factor in gas for the drive over and back but trust me, it wasn't $1600 dollars.

So, when planning your next trip try these two little tips to see if you can save money on your airfare!