A few tricks for cheap plane tickets

I may be scared of traveling by plane, but I have a keen interest in anything to do with planes, flight schedules, airports, any principles, rules, rule violations, etc. My favorites are the National Geographic and Discovery shows on Airport Security, Dubai Airport, Sydney Airport, New York Airport, Plane Crashes and more and more. I also like to watch videos about rating airlines, airports and all. And my favorite site that I visit every day is flightradar24.

Well, from all this reading and watching, I've learned some tricks to get cheaper plane tickets, and I'm going to share a few with you.

Don't expect the lowest prices when there are national holidays or school holidays and you want to seal them all - The first hack is more of an arrangement. We should not hope that when there are national holidays and we would like to find cheap tickets, they will be at the most convenient times.It is normal when, for example, March 3 falls on a Monday, to observe an increased demand for plane tickets for the period and for the days that allow the so-called "merger of holidays" and "extension of holidays" in our latitudes.It's the same during the school holidays, when many parents take time off and try to organize interesting experiences for their children. It is normal for an increase in demand for specific dates and a constant supply for prices to increase as well.

But here is something I can tell you from my experience. At the beginning of January, I organized a trip to Italy for the period March 2-4, i.e. entirely on weekends without taking additional leave. I was looking for all kinds of travel options to airports in northern Italy and I managed to find the convenient option to travel on March 1 ie. on Friday night after work to Bologna where we spent the night. The next morning we took a fast train from Bologna to Milan where we had 2 nights. On the last day, we headed to Bergamo, from where we boarded a plane to Sofia. On March 4, there were 2 flights Bergamo-Sofia.The first was at 6 in the morning ie. had to sleep either in bergamo or at the airport as it is impossible to take a bus from milan at 3am to bergamo to be on time 2 hours before a flight at the airport which is a big extreme inconvenience BUT watching the price of this flight even though it is on a holiday it almost until the day of our travel the price no exceeded BGN 20 or BGN 30. Naturally, we did not choose this inconvenient time because we wanted not to "waste" the Monday off in Sofia, as many other travelers would choose. The second Bergamo-Sofia flight of the day was at 16:30 in the afternoon and of course it was much more convenient to condense almost the whole day in walking and at the same time to get home at a normal time to prepare and rest for the coming working Tuesday. Well, at the beginning of January we bought the ticket for this flight at a bargain price of about 50-60 BGN, but as the date approached and demand increased due to the extra day off, there were times when the price for the one-way flight reached 500 BGN, but most of the time it was around 300 BGN. As I mentioned, the inconvenient morning flight did not attract such interest, and for this reason it was significantly more profitable.

Book in advance, but not too early - from my experience tracking specific flights, I can say that about 3 weeks before the date of travel, the price starts to go up. There are rare cases where cheaper tickets are released at the last minute due to a total inability to fill a particular flight, but not all airlines have such a policy. Some shiny airlines manage to break even by selling only first and business class seats and it is not essential for them to fill the plane with economy class passengers. But back to when is the best time to book. Most airlines have their ticketing systems set up so that there is a certain quota of very low priced tickets, for example the first 10 tickets sold. The next 100 passengers will get an average or rather close to fair price, which most would consider "normal", and the last 30 passengers will get a really expensive offer, but it would benefit those who have a strictly fixed travel time that they can't change, mostly business travel.Simply put, airline ticket prices are determined based on the margin that the airline has calculated that it aims to receive for the particular flight.

Book flights on Tuesday or Wednesday - I have come across advice in many places that Tuesday and Wednesday are the best days of the week to buy plane tickets. According to many publications, most of the airlines make adjustments in the Global Reservation System Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.The reason is that they know perfectly well that a large number of people switch to buying a plane ticket during the holidays, and not just looking and analyzing the different options while we are bored at work or just before going to sleep.

Try not to travel Friday to Saturday if possible - Naturally, again due to increased demand on weekends, you can find cheaper airfares on other weekdays. Another advantage of traveling outside of the busiest days is the fact that then the airports are not so crowded and the entire process of check-in, checking luggage and documents takes place much more calmly, without tension and without particular queues.

Delete cookies on your device - the so-called "cookies", which store information about your activity on the Internet, also store information about the specific flights in which you are interested and often check their price. At some point, precisely because of them, logging in again from the same device, you may receive a higher price in order to be pressured to buy the tickets faster, so that they do not become even more expensive or do not sell out.

Use low-cost companies - It is quite natural that traveling with low-cost companies will turn out to be more budget-friendly than traveling with standard ones. Everyone knows that. But why do they manage to achieve such prices? Low-cost companies cut a lot of costs. They save not only by offering the purchase of food and drinks during the flight, which, as a rule, are free on standard airlines. They also save by using cheaper and more remote airports, rather than the main ones in a city, which charge higher fees from the airlines. They manage to further reduce the amount of airport fees by trying to minimize the stay of the aircraft at the airport itself.

With low-cost airlines, the process of unloading passengers and luggage and loading the next passengers with their luggage is much faster than with standard airlines. And yet, the purpose of the additional baggage fee is precisely to make you use less baggage, where the airline saves time, effort and fuel.

Also, at least I haven't come across a low-cost airline that uses the airport's sleeves. With them, the movement of passengers from the gate to the plane is always done by bus, which is significantly cheaper than renting an automated arm.

From my own recent experience, I can attest to the same. I bought my tickets for the day trip to Vienna 2 months in advance. On the way, I used Ryanair and the flight cost me about BGN 60. On the way back I used the services of Austrian and the flight cost about 240 BGN.

For such a short flight, the only extra I got on the way back was the use of a sleeve, free mineral water and a chocolate bar. I don't think it's worth these "extras" for 4 times the price of tickets, but I still chose the scheduled Austrian flight because of the convenient time, which allowed me to make the trip in one day without an overnight stay.

Buy tickets from the airline site - No matter what we say and no matter how many air ticket platforms advertise themselves, they are useful for gathering information about the airlines on a given route, as well as for connecting flights involving different airlines. If you need to get from point A to point B by direct flight, it is certainly the most profitable and safe to buy the plane ticket from the airline's website. All other sites and travel agencies take additional commissions for selling airline tickets. Moreover, on the Internet I have seen many complaints about the need for flight changes, delayed and canceled flights, booked through third parties and the inability to find an adequate solution.

If you are flexible with the dates, you will get much better prices - If you have selected a destination, you can choose the date by the prices. Accordingly, you can do the opposite. If you have fixed dates, you can use the options on many flight search engines to show you the prices by destination, starting with the cheapest for the specific dates. If you choose the option for close dates, you can also get much cheaper options.

If you want to go and come back within the day, don't buy a return ticket - from my experience, I can say that airlines charge extra if there is not at least 1 night between the two flights.

When I was looking for tickets to Vienna and looking at the options all with Austrian travel, I was getting a premium if I bought a round trip ticket. I'm currently looking at Lufthansa flights and I'm coming to the same conclusion. I work with a travel agency that has given me the same recommendations for other airlines.

Finally, I would also like to mention the fact that the cheapest plane tickets are found after the holidays are over, around major holidays or school holidays due to reduced demand. Also, traveling outside the peak tourist season for the particular destination is also a guarantee of better prices.

Simply put, in Europe for sea destinations the most expensive is in August and the cheapest in January. For mountain resorts, which are at their busiest during the ski season, the best time to travel is during the summer months outside the dates of summer events such as festivals, expos and fairs, and the most expensive is in December and January during the height of the ski season.

If you are looking for options for connecting flights, you can take advantage of a service that some airlines offer, but I think quite a few people in Bulgaria know about it. It's called Stopover. Stopover is the transfer destination where you have a longer stay incl. with an overnight stay without increasing the total price of plane tickets.

Some airlines even cover a night in a hotel. Others offer packages for the intermediate destination - hotel accommodation, breakfast, tours. For example, if you fly Thai airlines to Australia, you will most likely get a free visit to Bangkok.

My last tip is if you are traveling with transfers, buy your tickets in one booking. When connections are visible through the booking and where there is a flight delay and the inconvenience of missing a connecting flight, you can more easily get compensation.

And of course, the goal is not always to achieve the cheapest trip! The most important thing is to have an unforgettable time, to fulfill another dream of a certain destination and to be happy from the trip itself!