First, a disclaimer: There is no universal rule to saving money when booking flights. How do I know this? Because if there were, then everybody would follow it, and then the rule would change as airlines adapted to the market behavior and increased the price to meet the increase in demand.
That said, I've booked a lot of flights, particularly in the past three years, and anecdotally, I've observed a few trends that help me to save money when booking flights. Below is a little checklist I follow to make sure I'm getting the best price before I pull the trigger on buying a ticket.
Typically, I'm able to score savings between $20 and $150 on main cabin tickets when I follow this process.
The one time I booked business class? I saved thousands. Though, there were a variety of factors working in my favor:
- the flight date was mid-week
- the itinerary included a 12-hour layover
- the origin airport frequently undersells first and business class tickets
- relatedly, I booked the ticket only a month out – which I suspect meant that the airline dropped the price because they had historical data to show that the likelihood of them selling those remaining premium cabin tickets was low
The flight was about $900 more than the main cabin ticket – which I cashed in some points to cover – and it got me two long legs in a lie-flat suite, plus access to one of the most premium lounges worldwide during that long layover.
Without further ado, here's my step-by-step process for saving the most money on flights.
