How to Find Cheap Airfare to Austin City Limits Festival

It seems that every summer music festival has its challenges when it comes to finding cheap airfare. Sometimes it’s a remote location that’s a challenge to reach, and other times it’s a popular summer travel destination so airfare is more expensive as a result.

The Austin City Limits Festival would ordinarily fall into the latter category, they’ve cleverly scheduled the festival to take place in early October so it’s not right smack in the midst of the high summer travel season. And while this can help in the hunt for cheap airfare, it’s still wise to do your homework before you buy a plane ticket just to make sure you’re getting the best deal you can.

You don’t have to be a travel expert to get a better deal on airfare, if you pay attention to the simple tips outlined below. Keep in mind that although these tips are especially useful for an event like the Austin City Limits Festival when more people than normal will be flocking to one particular destination, most of them will be handy to remember no matter when you’re booking a flight or where you’re traveling.

>> Austin City Limits Festival in 2010 is from October 8-10

Keep Plans Flexible

This is probably the most often-spouted piece of wisdom when it comes to finding cheap airfare, and it’s with good reason – it works. Travelers who only look for flights on one particular day (or who limit themselves further to looking at a few hours on one particular day) run the risk of missing a significantly cheaper flight a day or two on either side of the one they’re looking at.

You can manually search for multiple departure 9and arrival) dates and times by plugging in different information to any booking site, but it’s much easier to make use of the “flexible search” that many airfare booking sites have now. Near where you put in your travel information, look for a box that says “my dates are flexible” (or similar language). Check that box and let the system find the cheapest flights for you within a few days on either side of your original target date.

Know When Flights Are Cheaper

This tip doesn’t require being clairvoyant (although if you are, that’s cool), and if you’re following the tip listed above you stand a very good chance of finding the cheaper fares anyway, but this tip can help you get there a little faster. The fact is that there are natural price fluctuations during each day and each week when airline tickets are more or less expensive depending on the time or the day.

While it’s not set in stone, the cheaper days of the week to fly tend to be Wednesday, Tuesday, and Saturday – and the cheaper times of the day tend to be the earliest flights of the morning or the latest departures at night. When you’re doing your “flexible dates” search using the tip listed above, starting with those days and times may give you a head start toward cheaper fares.

Look at All Area Airports

Sometimes the destination you’re headed for has only one airport within a reasonable distance, so you’re stuck with only one option as far as where you can fly into. But sometimes there are 2-3 airports within a few hours of your target – and if you can save big on a flight into an airport that’s a couple hours’ drive from where you really want to be, then the drive might be worth it.

With the Austin City Limits Festival, you have the option of flying into Austin – but the cities of Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio are also options if you find a great deal on airfare into one of them and don’t mind driving a few hours. It may not work out logistically, but it never hurts to check on things like that if you’ve got more than one airport to choose from.

Check Discount Airlines

One of the reasons it’s a good idea to check as many airports as are reasonable for your arrival is that some airports are more popular with discount airlines than others. Any airport that has steady service from lots of budget carriers is more likely to have great deals on airfare more regularly.

You probably have heard of some of the bigger budget airlines that serve much of the country – airlines like Southwest, JetBlue, and Frontier. But some airlines that count as discount carriers are smaller regional airlines that may not have names you recognize. If you can’t get a direct flight to wherever you’re flying, it’s worth checking on what budget airlines serve your target airport and switching to that carrier midway if you can get a steal of a deal.

photo by Choose_Freewill