Fly Cheaper - Part II

Cntd...

Flying Cheaper not always depends on just selecting a right airline offering a cheaper fare. Its way beyond that. There are a few ingredients that can help you get the fare or atleast understand why your fare ends up being slightly higher. Its better to take a right decision before booking the tickets by considering these lists of important ingredients:

1. Season - Low & High Season or Peak & Off-Peak Season
2. Visiting Place
3. Different Routes
4. Understanding Seat Structure of the Plane
5. Booking Tickets

Season

In a year, we have 2 seasons which can be either called as high and low season or Peak or Off-peak season. The high and low season mainly vary depending on the destination location and number of flights available to reach the location. For example, from USA to Chennai Feb, Mar, Apr,Sept,Oct months are low season. May, Jun, July, Aug, Nov, Dec & Jan months are Peak/High season.

Visiting Place

Destination place also decides how big the air fare you need to pay. If you are travelling to Chennai from NY, NJ, Chicago & SF which has only few flights flying in and out by different airlines, you can expect a high air fare in the high season too. But if you travel to Delhi from these places, you have lots of flights flying in and out and can the fare is really reasonable.

Different Routes

En-Routing of the airlines also makes difference in the airfare. If you are ok having 2 or more stopping, you can expect a cheaper fare. But if you want to have only one stop during the high season, better ready to pay a high fare. For example, if you want to fly to Chennai from Houston during July / Aug high season times, you might end up paying $1700 per person thru Lufthansa one stop in Frankfurt. But if you decide to fly via Delta or Air India, stopping Chicago, London, Mumbai & finally to chennai, the air fare might come out cheaper.

Understanding Seat Structure

For instance, if a plane has 300 coach seats the seats are divided as so. This is an approximation. 150 seats sell for full fare

100 seats sell for a lower fare

50 seats sell for the absolute lowest fare

Booking Tickets

Once you are ready with your dates, you have to find a good agent to book your tickets. There are 2 sources as per my knowledge from whom you can buy tickets other than the airline.

1. Consolidators & 2. Agents

Consolidators are like a big agency which sells tickets in bulk from the lot alloted to them by the airlines for a wholesale price without any added commisions.

Agents are sub agencies which sell tickets or try to get tickets from the alloted tickets by the consolidators adding commisions

If you can find a consolidator near you, buy tickets from them not from the agent. You will save quite a lot of money.

How to get the absolute lowest fares

In conclusion,

• Try to go on dates which doesn't fall under too high season
• Plan in advance **2-3 months for low season. **4-5 months for high season
  Avoid flying on weekends (for some airlines)
• Be flexible about dates of travel. Some dates get filled up but the next day may be available.
• Check different options of flying out like flight options, enrouting options
• Call different agency and consolidators to get price for the same dates and compare them

None of the above guarantees the lowest fare but this will improve your chances immensely.