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11 Tips On Finding The Best Travel Deals

EVERYONE LOVES A GOOD BARGAIN BUT IS THERE ANYTHING MORE SATISFYING THAN GRABBING HOLD OF AN INTERNATIONAL AIRFARE FOR LESS THAN A WEEK’S RENT? 


Knowing the best time to book your summer escape in Europe – or how to ensure you’re the first to know when sale fares are released, can lead to hundreds of dollars of savings. It’s money that can be put to valuable use staying in upgraded rooms, doing an exciting exploration tour or taking cooking classes from Triple Crown chefs in Tuscany or some extra spending money at the alluring duty free stores.

Spring generally means earlybird specials to Europe, although these days carriers such as Emirates and Singapore Airlines tend to release Europe fares in August. Last we even saw budget carrier Scoot throw down the gauntlet early to other airlines with a rock-bottom fare for $499 Auckland to Athens one way, with an increasing fuel costs we expect competition to be very fierce in 2018.

"Booking well in advance of travel' (more than 200 days before departure) will let you save big time" says Bryce Jamison, director of Travel Shack. If you're connecting from a regional or domestic airport you will find huge savings by “selecting a domestic flight that departs in the middle of the week and at an off-peak travel time,” he says.

Travel Shack in a recent quest, set out to answer when the best time to book your flights, we have snooped our way through airlines, travel agents, booking systems and booking sites big data to hunt down the secret strategies and tips to help you bag a bargain. 

BE PREPARED, THEN GET IN EARLY

As a general rule of thumb, the further out you can book, the better deal you can score, airfares can be booked 11 months (340 days) in advance. We know if you take advantage of airfare offers in conjunction with tour and land offers through a travel agent, you can often lock in exclusive wholesale fares at fares that cannot be found online or elsewhere, particularly in business class.

If you’re only after the airfare or flight to Europe or North America the best sale airfares for the following year tend to pop up around the end of September for Europe and mid-August for North America. If you definitely know you want to travel to Europe or North America next year, jump on those fares when you see them. Availability is always limited as Airlines tend to only put a handful of these “cheap airfares” into the market.

Travel Shack have found that booking on average 16 weeks out will score you the cheapest fares and will save you on average 19 percent. According to the data, even bigger savings can be found through advance planning to destinations less common, such as China or Japan or Mexico, where travellers can save up to 23 per cent on the average airfare by booking 25-28 weeks before departure.


KNOW THE BEST DAYS TO FLY

It may seem obvious that flying at times other than weekends and school holidays will help you save big time. Most airlines never have school holiday flights on sale as they know they will get a higher revenue for the flights. Through our research we found the best day to fly for the cheapest deals varies for domestic and international flight prices.

For travel domestically in New Zealand and to Australia, we’re finding Friday is the day when travellers on average are snapping up the lowest flight fares, compared to other days of the week.

There is a very different trend for international flights … with Wednesdays recording the lowest average flight price paid.

“At Emirates, our economy-class fares tend to be lower for travel between Monday and Wednesday,” the airline’s divisional vice-president Australasia, Barry Brown, says. “Business-class fares tend to be lower on a Wednesday.”
 

BE FLEXIBLE WITH YOUR STOPOVERS

The old adage “life is a journey, not a destination” is not often embraced in todays time-poor world. But beyond having flexibility when it comes to the date and day you fly on, being open to a stopover and exploring another beautiful city can save you valuable spending money, as well as add another destination notch to your belt. Singapore Airlines and Air New Zealand offer incredible savings on the “Singapore Stopover Program” - which we highly recommend. Here at Travel Shack we have employed technology platform that allows us to search over a full calendar month for the cheapest fare to your destination.  
 

MAKE MULTIPLE STOPS

Another way to save is to look for flights with an additional stopover. We know that this is not for everyone but if you don’t mind adding another stop, you can find some incredible international flight rates, a particular favourite of ours is Auckland - Brisbane - Taipei - New York, this routing is often $1000 cheaper than flying on a one stop flight via Houston or Los Angeles.

CHOOSE A CHEAPER DESTINATION

Instead of booking that peak-season Fiji or Rarotongan holiday, it pays to consider the alternatives. Expedia’s 2016 Value Tracker shows a significant 15 per cent decrease in flight prices to Vietnam, an 18 per cent drop in flights to Peru during peak Pacific travelling dates.

In Australia flights also dropped by 11 per cent, and flights to South Africa fell by a whopping 28% per cent, which, when combined with the strength of the New Zealand dollar against the South African rand, signals a hefty saving on your overall holiday budget - particularly on those often very pricey safaris.

If you’re hellbent on a European holiday, flying into a less popular city can help you to nab a bargain. Emirates’ Barry Brown says destinations such as Dublin and Oslo currently appear to be some of the best-value destinations to fly to in the year ahead. Air New Zealand’s Matt Jenkins has highlighted “flying into Manchester via Houston is often a very good value option”.
 

FLY INTO AN ALTERNATIVE AIRPORT

If you’re flying into a major city, choosing to fly into a lesser known airport can make a huge difference to your fare and in some cases, the alternative may be closer to your accommodation. “As London Heathrow tends to be a busier airport, in some cases it can be cheaper to instead fly to Gatwick, which is only a 45 minute drive away,” 

 

ACTUALLY SIGN UP FOR SALE ALERTS

Email price alerts is the No.1 way to stay up to date with bargain flight deals. Make sure you have signed up to our email mailing lists. However, you can broaden your cost-saving tool kit by following airlines and Travel Shack on social media, and downloading their apps to set up fare alerts.

Sign Up Here

 

LOOK OUT FOR NEW FLIGHT ROUTES

When airlines add new flights to a destination, we often see bargain flight deals to that destination so we recommend keeping an eye out for new flight routes. An example is Emirates recent launch between Bali and Auckland which has also caused a bit of a price way with Air New Zealand, which is ultimately at the benefit of the traveller.


BEFRIEND A TRAVEL AGENT

Once a travel agent has an understanding of your total travel needs, they can find better fares than those immediately available online. The have access to private and wholesale fares that no online booking engine will ever be able to search due to the closed network GDS.

The reason these fares exist is because most airlines have negotiated agreements with travel agents that allow private fares, as well as routings, stopovers and add-ons that aren’t available online, because the fare needs to be manually ‘built’ by one of us “travel experts”.

At Travel Shack we keep a record of all people after particular specials and we contact them when the right one appears for them - this is for both airfares and packages.


LOOK FOR PACKAGES

At the same time as early-bird flights are released, so too are brochures for companies such as Intrepid, Contiki and Viva Expeditions, offering great fares. We recommend that you take advantage of tour operators and cruise operators offering good deals with extra inclusions such as free airfares for early bookings or room upgrades - they are well worth the savings!

GET TO KNOW YOUR ALLIANCE PARTNER AIRLINE

If you’re a frequent flyer such as an Air New Zealand Airpoints member, be open to using the partner airlines of the primary airline you fly on. Air New Zealand’s partner airlines are in the Star Alliance, while Qantas partners are in the One World Alliance.
Using partner or alliance airlines in the same booking often give you better fares or take you more directly to some destinations, while you still accrue the maximum value points and status on your membership airline.”

If you have any questions or want to chat about getting that bargain flight deal make sure you get in touch with either Bryce or Lisa here at Travel Shack