What Everyone Ought To Know About Saving Money on Holiday Flights

Holiday traveling is always a bit of a nightmare because flights are fuller, more expensive and just a bit more tense. We at Fareboom think that this is ridiculous, and that you should enjoy your holiday travel planning, from the fare watching to booking to making the trip itself.

So take a deep breath and trust that we’ve got the tips and tricks that will make your holiday travel a breeze to research and book. Just by using one or two of our recommendations, you can pass that stress on to Santa and actually enjoy visiting family and friends.

Purchase Early

There’s no doubt about it. The earlier you book, the better your price. Normally, when booking a flight, you would have the option to wait until the last minute for a flight to open up. However, for the holidays, the opposite is true. Instead of fares going down because airlines are worries about filling seats, they know that they can charge huge amounts because anyone who books last minute won’t have any other options.

Your best bet is to use a Fareboom Fare Alert. You can set the travel patterns you are interested in and wait a few days or weeks to see if there is a price drop. Don’t wait too long though!

Be Flexible with Dates

On the Deals tab of the Fareboom homepage, you can enter your departure airport and arrival airport and find out the cheapest day to fly during a whole month. If your travel can be extended by a few days on one end of your trip or another, you could see massive savings simply from checking the Deals tab.

The Deals tab, unlike anything out there in travel world, shows you the prices for departures AND arrivals for the entire month. If you want to see when the cheapest fare will be, you’ll need to see both the departure and return dates. You may know that booking mid-week is cheaper, but did you know that if you choose the wrong departure date, you could have your fare bumped by several hundred dollars? Even most of our smartest travelers think the fare depends only on the departure date. While that is sometimes is the case, when it comes to the holidays, you need all the airline ammo you can get. Want to see it in action? I thought so.

For example, when going from New York, New York to London, England, you would pay:
$1,047 for December 20-31, 2013

OR YOU COULD PAY JUST..

$752 for December 9-17, 2013

Pretty cool, right? Go check it out right now!

Alternate Airports

Fareboom.com has the unique opportunity for you to pick alternate airports on the departure, return or both. While some of you have options within a cab ride from home, others could benefit from airports up to 175 miles away.

Make sure you check out the radius search slider bars on our homepage when you first enter your flight request. Even if you don’t want to go to another airport, we dare you to try one search with the slider and one search without it to see how much you could save.

Note: If you do find an alternative airport, be sure to calculate in the cost of a rental car, bus fare or public transportation before making your final decision.

Let the Destination Choose You

If you’re the type who loves to go for a holiday excursion with your significant other away from the traditional large family gathering, we encourage you to let the destination choose YOU! Keep your eye out for low fares or great package deals.

On of Fareboom’s coolest features is that you can play with the Fare Cruncher Map. You put in where you’re starting from and then see what the fares are across the world. Let’s say you’re starting in Austin, Texas and you don’t care where in the world you go for a holiday adventure this December.

You could go to New York City for a cheap $295 or Lima, Peru for a stunningly low $538. If you want to go somewhere far flung, you could even get a stellar deal to Seoul, Korea for $1003. These prices are incredible because your dates are flexible and you can take advantage of the lowest fare days.

Pro Tip: Don’t forget that while it’s winter for those of us in the Northern hemisphere, it’s scorching summer across the Equator. Be sure to check the local weather before you book a ticket.

Mix and Match Airlines

Although some travelers like to restrict their chosen flights to a specific airline to gain points or status, we highly encourage you to be flexible about which airline you fly.

To do that on Fareboom, you don’t have to change a thing. If you do want to select an airline, click on More Options in the bottom right corner of the search box. It will slide down to show options for multi-city travel or airline-specific flights.

Mixing airlines can often mean that you get the best deal on both airlines. If you leave on a cheap day for Delta, the return date you have in mind could be a higher price day. However, maybe American has the date you want to return home at a discount. By booking through Fareboom, you can mix and match airlines easily to get the best deals.

Our Promise

We’re so happy to share our insider tricks and tips with you. We know you are looking for a site that you can trust will not only have the best deals, but will also have your back if something funky happens with booking. We, at Fareboom, are a team of real, living, breathing people who are here 24/7 to take care of you from the research stage to your arrival home after your travels are complete. You can count on Fareboom.

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