4 easy ways to save on flights or
how to find tickets
Due to the fact that we travel quite a lot and, as a result, we constantly fly on airplanes, friends and acquaintances often turn to us with a request to tell them how to fly to this or that country cheaper.
We tell, sometimes we help to carry out a search for tickets, their registration and purchase, but now they have decided to write detailed instructions so that it is useful for those who cannot be asked.
In this article, we will not describe in detail how to book a ticket on a specific site, but we will write down the possibility of finding cheap air tickets.
We tell, sometimes we help to carry out a search for tickets, their registration and purchase, but now they have decided to write detailed instructions so that it is useful for those who cannot be asked.
In this article, we will not describe in detail how to book a ticket on a specific site, but we will write down the possibility of finding cheap air tickets.
1. Search for tickets in low-cost airlines
When we lived in St. Petersburg, low-cost airlines were our favorite way to travel around Europe - and indeed, if you have the opportunity to buy a ticket to Europe for 10 euros, then in our opinion, just blasphemous not to use it for domestic flights to the USA, and now we fly low-cost trains in Asia.
Many people fear to fly with similar airlines, suggesting that security may suffer due to low prices, but in reality the cost is reduced due to other factors. Most often it is:
Ryanair's management constantly strives to reduce costs and thereby reduce the cost of a ticket (while earning on large volumes of traffic and on additional services), with its sometimes insane ideas, and at the same time doing good PR. Here are some high-profile initiatives that the airline planned to implement:
There are also companies that fly from Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland: Blue1, AirBaltic, Air Berlin, EasyJet, Ryanair, Wizz Air.
Loukoster in the USA: Frontier Airlines, Jetblue, Virgin America,
in Asia: Airasia, Jetlite, Jetstar, Spicejet , Air India Express, FireFly, Fly Kingfisher, Tiger Airways
When searching and buying tickets in low cost airlines, you should remember about the additional expenses that may arise during the flight:
When we lived in St. Petersburg, low-cost airlines were our favorite way to travel around Europe - and indeed, if you have the opportunity to buy a ticket to Europe for 10 euros, then in our opinion, just blasphemous not to use it for domestic flights to the USA, and now we fly low-cost trains in Asia.
Many people fear to fly with similar airlines, suggesting that security may suffer due to low prices, but in reality the cost is reduced due to other factors. Most often it is:
- lack of food on board;
- restrictions on baggage allowance;
- the absence of fixed seats in the cabin (this encourages passengers to plunge into the plane as quickly as possible and shortens the intervals between flights);
- use of non-main airports;
- the use of one type of aircraft in the airline (reduces the cost of maintenance and staff training);
- the inability to hand over tickets or change flight dates;
- short direct flights - often no more than 3 hours
- Ticket office is not available - you can usually search for tickets only on the airline’s website
Ryanair's management constantly strives to reduce costs and thereby reduce the cost of a ticket (while earning on large volumes of traffic and on additional services), with its sometimes insane ideas, and at the same time doing good PR. Here are some high-profile initiatives that the airline planned to implement:
- tax on fat;
- standing chairs;
- pay toilets on board
There are also companies that fly from Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland: Blue1, AirBaltic, Air Berlin, EasyJet, Ryanair, Wizz Air.
Loukoster in the USA: Frontier Airlines, Jetblue, Virgin America,
in Asia: Airasia, Jetlite, Jetstar, Spicejet , Air India Express, FireFly, Fly Kingfisher, Tiger Airways
When searching and buying tickets in low cost airlines, you should remember about the additional expenses that may arise during the flight:
- service charge for payment by credit card;
- checked baggage payment;
- transfer to and from the airport of arrival
2. Search for tickets for charter flights
Flights operated by carriers for a specific customer, such as a tour operator. Most often, charter flights are used to transport tourists, vacationers on the tour. a voucher, but in cases where part of the vouchers remain unsold, the tour operator sells air tickets separately - usually such offers appear literally 1-2 days before departure.
For the search, you can contact directly the tour operators working in the direction of interest, or search through the aggregators of charter offers, for example Skyscanner.com
Flights operated by carriers for a specific customer, such as a tour operator. Most often, charter flights are used to transport tourists, vacationers on the tour. a voucher, but in cases where part of the vouchers remain unsold, the tour operator sells air tickets separately - usually such offers appear literally 1-2 days before departure.
For the search, you can contact directly the tour operators working in the direction of interest, or search through the aggregators of charter offers, for example Skyscanner.com
- the inability to buy a ticket in advance;
- often inconvenient departure time;
- possible change of departure time at the last moment;
- only popular tourist routes;
- service is not the best level.
Promotions on the official websites of airlinesIt should be borne in mind that not necessarily a low cost airline will be cheaper. “Normal” carriers also often have good offers and promotions, so it makes sense to periodically browse sites, subscribe to mailings. For example, we bought tickets for tickets from St. Petersburg to Rome and Barcelona for 8,000 p., To Nice for 7,000 p. (price for a return ticket).
General recommendations:
General recommendations:
- try to find and buy tickets as early as possible - most often the price increases as the sale of tickets;
- “play” with the search for tickets - prices may vary depending on the day of the week and other factors (for example, on Tuesday tickets are more often cheaper than on Friday) - if you do not have a clear reference to dates, the probability of buying a cheap plane ticket increases;
3. Ticket search engines
There is a huge number of airlines and checking the cost of tickets in each is a rather tedious business. Instead, it’s easier to use special ticket search sites (meta search engines, super aggregators). Such sites search for tickets by airline, booking systems and agencies.
They themselves do not have their own base and they do not sell tickets, but they are redirected to the agency’s or airline’s website. Often, with the help of such a search, a ticket can be bought cheaper than on the airline’s website (agencies can give discounts from their commissions due to large sales), but sometimes it happens the other way, some charge additional fees.
Search for tickets for all super-aggregators is carried out by almost the same agencies and airlines, but the results are all the same often different, especially on indirect flights, where there are a large number of possible connections.
Search for tickets is also carried out on most low-cost airlines, but, unfortunately, some of them, in order to save on agency fees, do not give out information about their flights to search engines (for example, this applies to Ryanair).
In general, meta-search engines differ in three parameters:
- airline coverage
- the convenience of use,
- special features;
- most often gives the lowest price;
- You can search for tickets without specifying the exact city, for example, "USA - Italy" or "USA - France";
- ticket search is very fast;
- nice and easy to use interface;
- calendar of low prices (you can choose the date when biley in the same direction is cheaper)
- subscription to the price notification by e-mail;
- price dynamics in a particular city by months from which you can find out during which period tickets are usually cheaper;
- list of special offers from airlines;
- "smart" recognition of the entered city (understands names with errors, misprints, and typed by transliteration);
- possibility of swapping the cities of departure and arrival with one click (small but nice);
- The creators of the site are also travelers and currently live in Phuket. This fact has little effect on the ability to find a cheap air ticket, but explains the rich functionality of the site - apparently the guys took into account their extensive experience of finding tickets when creating the service
4. Compensation for delay or cancellation of the flight
This item does not apply to ticket search, but it is also very important, so we decided to include it in this article. Few people know about this, but if you have been informed about the delay or cancellation of the flight at the airport, or less than 14 days before the departure date, or you were denied boarding, then in addition to the amenities that the airline must provide, you can receive up to 600 euros compensation.