Finding the most affordable airline tickets is actually quite challenging. The rise and fall of airline ticket costs is very unpredictable. Timing is everything, yet other factors such as the source of your tickets, the season of your flight, the demand of your destination, among other things, also comes into play. Getting the best airfare can be a frustrating experience when at the back of your mind, there is a huge possibility that some people who you share the flight with actually just paid half, or worse, a quarter of what you thought was your "bargain" find.
To make sure that you get the best deal in airline tickets, you need to have an idea of how airlines set prices. This complex procedure of fare pricing boils down to three factors: inventory, demand, and competition. The inventory, or number of seats available in all flights in all airlines, are fed into four reservation systems, namely WorldSpan, Galileo, Apollo, and Sabre. As in the fundamental economic principle of supply and demand, if one flight has a lot of takers, then the price goes up, while if a flight is not selling well, the price goes down to entice people to buy available seats. The thing is, the four reservation systems are not updated at the same time, thus seats fed into one system may have gone very high because of demand, while the seats fed to the other system might still be low because no one has yet taken advantage of them. To beat this system, certain "tricks" can be done:
• Having flexible dates allows you to check the most credible lowest fare, as you have set the price, and not the date as the most important factor.
• Searching as early as possible will allow you to get majority of the deals. At the same time, take note that last minute fares can also be the most affordable.
• Red eye flights and flights with numerous stopovers will definitely cost less than "primetime" non-stop flights. Demand for these flights is low and therefore, prices are, too.
• Flights that land or depart from main airports are actually more costly than flights that depart or arrive in minor neighboring airports. Chances are, flights departing from or arriving in New York’s La Guardia Airport is a bit more costly than flights departing from or arriving in the airport in Newark, New Jersey, which is quite near, considering you might get stuck in traffic leaving or getting to La Guardia.
• Remember that discounted fares usually carry a lot of restrictions, too.
Perhaps the most powerful tool for consumers nowadays to find the airline tickets is the internet. The internet allows them to constantly monitor fare changes in the comfort of their own homes. Deals and last-minute changes are just a mouse click away with websites such as Asian Air Fares, with their website AsianAirfares.com which has a wide selection of rates on airline tickets, giving the consumer the power of choice and convenience.
