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With Covid restriction lifted, there has been an increase in travel. But with travel comes a heavy price to pay i.e. the flight tickets. But Google flights has come up with a hack to save some money on flight tickets for your upcoming next trip.
As we know, last minute flight booking is always priced higher. So, travel agents always ask customers to plan their trip in advance to save on flight tickets. On Wednesday, James Byers, Google Flights’ group product manager, in a blog post said that from April to August this year, searches for “cheapest airline tickets" surged more than 240 percent in the US.
During this same period, the top-searched questions related to air travel also included “when is the best time to book a flight?" and “how to find cheap flights?"
The Google Flights analyzed five years' worth of data – from August 2017 to August 2022 – to find out the best time to book a flight and other times airfare deals are at their best.
As per Google flights, it is cheaper to fly on weekdays than on weekends.
“It’s been cheaper to fly in the middle of the week than on the weekend — especially Sundays. On average, flights that depart on Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday have been 12 percent cheaper than weekend departures. If you exclude international destinations, the potential savings jump even higher to 20 percent."
For travelers looking for a cheap flight, the time and how early you book the the flight matters. "For US domestic flights, prices have usually been their lowest 21-60 days out, with average prices bottoming out 44 days before departure. However, this depends on season to season.
For example, spring break tickets were cheapest 38 days before departure, for Thanksgiving it hit their lowest point 52 days out. For a summer vacation in July or August, the cheapest airfare popped up just 21 days before the travel date.
Apart from this, Google also found flight prices have only been 1.9 percent cheaper on average over the past five years for flights booked on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday instead on weekends.
"There isn’t much value in purchasing your tickets on a certain day of the week — sorry, Tuesday! If you shop for flights on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, or Thursdays instead of Saturdays or Sundays, prices have only been 1.9 percent cheaper on average over the past five years. So if your trip is just a couple of weeks away, don’t wait for Tuesday to roll around — book your flight now in case the price goes up, Byers wrote.
Apart from this, layover flight is also one of the best bets to save money. A non-stop flights fares about 20 percent more than connecting flights, according to Google Flights.
Google Flights has suggested to turn on price tracking for the destination one wish to travel. “Toggle on tracking for your destination and dates of travel, and we’ll email you if prices change substantially. Or, if you’re more flexible on when to travel, you can turn on tracking for ‘Any dates’ to get notified of price drops for flights departing in the next 3 to 6 months."
“Use the calendar view, date grid and price graph to see how fares change. The calendar view and date grid let you see how much you can save if you’re flexible on your departure and return dates. The price graph shows you what prices look like for an ‘X day’ long trip, depending on the departure date," it said.