Booking a Flight Soon? Drastically Reduce Your Travel Costs by Paying Attention to this Strategy
It’s the destination, not the journey that truly matters when it comes to finding affordable airfare online.
Gone are the days of constantly disabling cookies, setting notification alerts, and popping open incognito windows in hopes that flight prices will drop “any day now”.
Over the years, the Internet has put together a series of hacks, blog posts, and social media threads on the most affordable ways to travel the world. But a new study from online booking giant Kayak.com may prove that none of it matters anyway.
Your travel date is the best indicator of costly or affordable airfare.
Insights gathered from over 1.5 billion flight searches on Kayak’s website in 2017 highlighted the median airfare for each calendar day last year. Now, forecasters are using this data to predict the most affordable destination dates for 2018 travelers.
For example, the 2017 data shows that January is the cheapest month of the year for air travel, which is to be expected as the danger of delays or flight cancellations is high. Travelers returning to work after using their vacation time over the holidays contributes to this as well.
Another study completed by airfare analysis website, FareCompare, showcased the year’s most expensive dates to fly, with rather obvious findings such as “prices tend to spike for air travel during long weekends, spring breaks, and late summer periods”.
What are the forces behind the airline industry’s seemingly random flight pricing schedule?
Vice President of North America Marketing for Kayak, David Solomito, had this to say:
“The supply and demand is really what drives a lot of this… the times when people most want to travel, when things are most convenient, it’s more expensive.”
So which days should you request vacation time for in 2018? Check out the breakdown below:
Want more travel tips and tricks to use for 2018? Check out our post on the tech trends making travel more affordable or learn why booking vacations with a travel agent can help you save more money on your next trip!
