How to Find Cheap Spring Airfare

You don’t have to be a frequent traveler to know that airfare tends to be higher during the summer high season and lower during the winter off-season in many of the popular vacation destinations around the world. But just booking your trip for one of the shoulder seasons – fall or spring – doesn’t necessarily guarantee you the best of both price and weather.

Even if you avoid traveling to popular places in the spring, there are still good reasons to do a little homework when it comes to booking a spring trip that doesn’t break the bank. There are a few holidays that fall within the spring months that can put a damper on travel plans if you don’t plan far enough in advance, not to mention the natural fluctuations in the prices of airfare that no one but travel trend watchers seem to be aware of until they happen.

Booking a trip in a shoulder season is a great start to saving money on vacation, but there are a few more tricks to finding cheap fares that will help you save even more. Here are the things to keep in mind when you’re looking for cheap airfare in the spring.

Always Be Flexible

This tip is easily the most-quoted one when it comes to hunting down cheap airfare, but it’s repeated because it works. The worst thing you can do when you’re searching for cheap fares is to start with a really narrow search window – either one specific day, or (even worse) a few hours on one day – because your search may not include the days of the week and times of day when flights tend to be cheaper. Keeping your initial searches as broad as possible means you stand a better chance of finding the best deals around when you want to travel.

Start by utilizing the “my dates are flexible” tool that many big booking sites now offer. Look for a box with those words near where you input your travel information, and the site will automatically search for a few days on either side of your target date for the best deals in that window. You could, of course, do this manually – but it’s much easier to let the site do it for you. As for which days you put in to begin with, that brings us nicely to our next point…

Start Your Search When Flights are Cheapest

As mentioned, there are days during each week and times each day when the prices on airfare tends to be slightly higher and slightly lower than normal – and sometimes it’s a not-so-slight difference. It’s not set in stone when these fluctuations happen, but there are absolutely trends that have been determined and places where you can start.

For the most part, Wednesday fares tend to be cheapest, followed by Tuesday and Saturday. As for times of the day, the earliest flights of the morning are cheapest, followed by late-night departures (including red-eye flights). Knowing these tidbits means you can plug in something like an early morning Wednesday departure into a booking site – with the “my dates are flexible” option checked – and at least you’re starting from a point that’s likely to save you money.

Don’t Overlook Discount Airlines

Depending on where you are in the world, there’s likely to be a good selection of smaller budget airlines that you may or may not be familiar with. Sure, you know of the big legacy carriers – and sometimes they have great deals. But sometimes, for a variety of reasons, smaller discount carriers offer better deals than the big airlines ever can.

Check out a list of all the airlines that fly into the airport of your destination, and you’ll see names of airlines you don’t know. You can then look up those airlines on their own sites (discount airlines often save their best deals for their websites) and see where else they fly. Even if they don’t fly from your home airport, you might still be able to take advantage of their deals – if you’ve got a layover midway, there’s no reason you can’t switch from a bigger airline to one of the budget airlines at that point.

>> Here are some of the budget airlines around the world

Check Alternative Airports

One of the reasons discount airlines can sometimes offer better deals is that they fly into airports that aren’t the major airport for a given city, and that airport doesn’t charge lease rates that are as high as the major airport. If you’re not familiar with an area, however, you can still find out if there are alternate airports for your destination.

Many cities have specific airport codes for the airports in those cities, but there’s also a code that includes all area airports. By typing the name of a city instead of a 3-digit airport code into a booking site, you’ll see if there’s an option for that city with “All Airports” by the name – such as LON for all of the airports in London. Choose that option and the best deals into all the city’s airports will be included in your search results.

>> Here are some of the alternative airports in the United States

Focus on “Shoulder Season” Destinations

While many of the tips listed on this page will help you find better deals on airfare any time of year, one thing that will help you have a better trip overall in the spring is to focus your search on places that make good travel destinations in the shoulder seasons. Choosing destinations for a spring trip that are popular (and more expensive) in the summer will give you the best of both worlds. What makes the shoulder seasons so ideal for travel is that you’ll spend less than you would in the high season, but the weather isn’t as potentially bad as it can be in the low season.

Early spring may mean a little bit cooler weather, but the prices will be even better. If you wait until late spring you’ll be more likely to get good weather, but may be creeping into high season prices (not to mention crowds). Check out this list of shoulder seasons around the world to see where you might try to go during the spring for the best trip with the best deals.

photo by ED´WW day_dae (esteemedhelga)