Five Cheeky Flight Booking Secrets You Must Know

Though it seems like the most straightforward way that you could go about travel booking – hotel comparisons and planning itineraries and tours might be even trickier – there are some flight booking secrets you should know. These could make it cost YOU more but not other people.

Unfair, you say? Damn right, I say! So let’s dig right into these flight booking secrets and make you get that dream flight which you always wanted but couldn’t afford because you’ve been scammed. Watch the video if you are feeling lazy or read the transcript below.

Flight Booking Secrets #1: Secret Mode

You have to be all ninja! So go to the internet explorer and click on the top right corner to choose the private mode. A new window will pop up and in that window, and that window only, you search for your flights.

If you’ve ever searched for flights without being in secret mode, you might want to delete all your browser history and cookies because flight engines like to save all your search information via cookies and create fake urgency. So while you think the prices have increased – because it shows for you specifically that the flight price did increase – you go ahead and book it to avoid a further increase. But the price has actually not changed. It didn’t really increase. It’s just a cookie that told you it did.

And so we will fool it right back by being all secret about it.

Flight Booking Secrets #2: Country Settings

Let’s increase the cheekiness and pretend we’re not even booking from the country we’re in. There are actually apps in your browser that can do it for you but if you go for example to Skyscanner, you can change your country settings.

Look for the settings in the top corner or scroll down to the footer and choose a country they suggest. Try a country you are flying from (but also check for others to get a price and flight comparison). That actually gives you different flights, especially if you go on long haul flights. It can make quite a difference. Sometimes it’s just 20 Euros. But seriously why not save 20 euros? Sometimes that’s the checking in fee for your luggage and so you can get that for free!

Flight Booking Secrets #3: Booking in Advance

Know your booking times because depending on where you’re flying from or you’re flying to, there are different durations of how far you have to book in advance. For the US that is as soon as possible but if you’re booking from Germany, you should always look around eight weeks in advance.

I’ve actually done some research and found the specific times for different places to fly from from the USA, the UK
Germany and Australia. So if you’re living in any of those places or you’re currently in those places or you actually want to fly from those places, you might wanna check out the following link.

[su_service title=”Read this! The exact times for when you should book” icon=”icon: plane” size=”42″][/su_service]

Flight Booking Secrets #4: Booking on a Specific Day

You also need to know the times not only how far in advance your should book but also what day and time. Usually you shouldn’t book flights going out from the weekends as that’s when most people are having a break or have time off. For example, try to do your outgoing flights from Monday and come back on a Tuesday. If you know what to book, the best time to hit that ‘book now’ button is between midnight and 1 am.

Flight Booking Secrets #5: Price Matching

Check several flight search engines for the same flight and see if they come up with something else. I regularly use skyscanner, kayak and swoodoo (a German site). Then, I see which one has the best flight opportunities within a certain flexible time. A lot of the times it is actually cheaper to go through the airline’s website and book directly with them.

Before you do that, you might want to check if a local travel agency, such as Flight Centre, offers you price matching. This means they offer the same flight for a cheaper deal so you book with them. So you go to them and show them the price deal you found. Take a screen shot or printout with you. Ask them if they want to book it for you but cheaper and they might just say yes. So you get a better deal and they get a commission. It’s a win win situation.

[su_service title=”Read this! 90 Clever Ways to Save Money While Travelling” icon=”icon: plane” size=”42″][/su_service]

Which flight hacks did you not know before reading this post? Drop me a comment below.