Holiday Hacks: Air Travel Tips  

As February begins and spring suddenly seems that much closer, you might be contemplating your next holiday – perhaps a last-minute romantic break for Valentines Day? An Easter weekend getaway? Maybe you’re even planning well ahead for your summer holiday. Whatever your ideas, we all know that air travel can be a real pain to book, and sometimes ends up being the most expensive part of your trip – and that’s before you even get started on the airport traffic, the delays, the queues…

Don’t despair though. There are a few tricks to ease the pain, beat the crowds and save yourself some money – and we’d like to share them with you.

Don’t Fly on Friday or Sunday

Airlines tend to up their fares on these days, simply because they are the most popular for leisure travellers (while Friday also sees a lot of business travellers returning home).  The cheapest days to fly are widely reported to be Tuesdays and Wednesdays, while the cheapest time of day tends to be the more anti-social hours when no one really wants to be awake – i.e the crack of dawn, very late in the evening, or overnight.

Be Secretive with your Searches

Have you ever searched for a flight a few times and noticed that the price seems to be jumping like crazy? You’re not imagining it. This happens because prices are programmed to increase with each search based on the cookies in your browser, thereby encouraging repeat visitors to the site to book as quickly as possible to avoid incurring even higher costs. You can avoid this by always searching for flights in incognito or private browsing mode – your cookies are reset each time you do this, meaning your information can’t be tracked and prices won’t inflate.

Flexibility is Key

Of course, this applies to many different aspects of holiday planning if you’re looking to keep costs down, but perhaps none more so than flying. For starters, you should book using a service like Expedia or Skyscanner rather than a specific airline, as they will scan for the cheapest flights available from all providers. If you can also be flexible with what day you travel, even better – this can often save you a sizeable chunk of money. Finally, if you don’t really mind where you’re going as long as it’s a holiday, look at a few different destinations and pick the best deal!

Find the Sweet Spot

A lot of people believe that the earlier you book your plane ticket, the cheaper it will be – unfortunately this is very often not the case. Instead there is usually a ‘sweet spot’ a number of weeks before your planned departure in which prices are cheapest, before growing more expensive again. It takes some careful research and will never be an exact science, but if you’re flying elsewhere in Europe from the UK then four to eight weeks in advance is often a good bet; for the USA, this rises to somewhere around 22 weeks.

Book an Addison Lee airport transfer

Our airport transfers are fast, reliable and offer the best value available, with no surge pricing during peak hours. We know getting to the airport can be stressful, so we look to eliminate hassle at every stage: we perform flight and traffic tracking so that our drivers can plan your journey, ensuring you’re never late or subjected to long, boring waits in the terminal for a delayed flight. You can also book your ride up to three months in advance, so there’s no need for last-minute panic.