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Nobody knows where the airfares are heading this year but if you want to bargain with your travel agent, then the following tips would come handy:.
You must check the airlines sites before contacting the agent.
We aren’t talking about saving $7 to $10 of your booking fee that you might get charged on an Orbitz or Travelocity but about hundreds of dollars. If you buy air tickets from the websites of the airlines then you can save on various routes.
Aer Lingus, China Airlines, Singapore Airlines, Air Tahiti Nui and Air Canada are some the international airlines offering savings which can be as high as $200 roundtrip.
Many airlines are using promotional or promo codes so that the online travel agencies and meta search engines can be avoided so that they do not attract the customers to their sites. This formula of applying promo codes by the airlines will help them in not paying commissions to the other sites.
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Airlines like Southwest, American, Allegiant, Spirit, Air Canada, JetBlue, and Virgin America have followed this strategy last year. The discounts range form $10 to 50% off published fares. If you want to get the promo codes then you will have to sign up for the everyday flyer programs and the emailed newsletters of the airlines.
Travelocity, Kayak and others never enlist these fares. will post the promo codes in its blog when they are available. Airfarewatchdog
There is no particular day or time, which will prove to be the best for you to buy airfares.
It can be any time of the day when the airfare of your preferred route and travel period and airline will go down to its recent lowest point.
The airfares go up and down throughout the day, much like the stock market. It is hard to predict where the airfares will be heading.
For example, if you checked an airfare at 10 in the morning and do not like what you saw then come back after few hours and search again.
The availability of the seats is as important as the airfares. There can be a change in the availability in the number of seats even if the fares remain the same. This is because the airlines often adjust the seat availability at different levels of airfares.
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Though lowest fares seats are sold more quickly, airlines in this year will however offer lesser lowest fare seats.
If you can adjust your traveling dates by a day or two then you can easily save hundreds, more when you are buying more tickets.
The various travel agencies like the Orbitz, Cheapair, Cheaptickets, Hotwire and Travelocity are in a more advantageous position than most airline sites and meta search engines. You will need to search for the ‘flexible travel’ box or the ‘find low fares for flexible trips’ link on travel agency sites.
There will be lowest published fare over a 30-day period on all fares of domestic and international destinations shown by Travelocity on all airlines excepting Southwest and Allegiant. This is also done by Orbitz and Cheaptickets but over a 30-day period of your chosen destination.
Though the cheapest fares need a 7, 14, 21 or 28-day of advance purchase, when you need to leave the following day or on a short notice then Priceline’s ‘Name your own price’ bidding process will provide you help. This site has a section showing the discounts on the top 50 routes. The savings sometimes climb up to 40-60% or even more.
Source: Hotel & Resort Insider
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