TOP TIPS FOR A CHEAP AIR TICKET TO LONDON
If you've still got a bit of time before coming to London then you can set yourself up for the best savings using these top tips to get the best price air ticket.
Are these tips right for you?
These tips are largely designed for people with a few months before buying their tickets.If you're close to booking and want the best way of doing it don't even think of doing it without using my best ways to get cheap London airfares section which genuinely can save you a fortune (I'm not trying to sell you stuff, this whole site is totally free and independent!) Don't try and book without it!
If you're coming or going from mainland Europe you'll be needing to read my budget airlines guide too. Now - onto the insider's tips!
Buy Early
Airlines have their own logic. In this world, they reason, only businessmen buy plane tickets late. “A-ha,” the airlines say, “these guys are loaded! Let’s make ‘em pay through the nose. They’ll give us whatever we ask!” And guess what? They do. Don’t let the airlines do it to you! Here’s the most important golden rule: BUY AS EARLY AS POSSIBLE. It will save you heaps.
Travel out of peak
The best time to see London – in terms of the weather, at least – is in the summer. Unfortunately teeming hordes of other travellers from all over the world have the same idea and if you can possibly take a flight in a less popular period: you can save big bucks. January through March is the cheapest.
High season – where the fares are occasionally staggeringly high – is June, July and August; Christmas and New Year fall into this category too.
Mid Season is, as the name suggests, the land in-between these extremes. It’s basically April, May, September and November. May and Septmeber in particular can be glorious times to see the UK - the weather’s often lovely, and, nearly empty of other tourists you can frequently enjoy the country’s charms in far less crowded surroundings.
Travel midweek
Everyone wants an exact week or fortnight off, starting on one weekend and finishing on another. As a result prices are more expensive for weekend departures. Try searching for midweek flights. If you’re flexible within a few weeks – anything up to a month - Orbitz has a dealdetector which will allow you to set your desired price for the airfare – it will then email you if the fare drops to that level. This can be very useful! At the same time expedia has a trend tracker that tells you what part of the year flights tend to be cheapest at. It even makes an attempt at predicting how fares will pan out in the future! (take that with a pinch of salt though: it's probably a good way to estimate how much future fares will cost but at the moment prices can change so unpredictably that it shouldn't be totally relied upon)
Sign up for Rewards
If you’ve still got a while to go before booking your flights, sign up to airline loyalty schemes/newsletters now. Ok, you’re going to end up getting a lot of pointless emails but often this is the first ways to find out about a special sale that the airline is having – make sure you’re not suckered in by it though – always compare that sale price with what others are offering. And shop around sensibly for tickets when the time comes to buy.
Be Under 26
Well obviously this isn’t going to help if you’re no longer under 26 but if you – or any of your party – are under 26 then click your mouses right over to STAtravel. When I was at college these guys saved me a fortune – they offer to undercut any published fare from a competitor for the under 26s. (the sad exception is that the exclude the airline’s own website from their price promise) The logic is that, enamoured of such a wonderful fare, you’ll be hooked by the individual airline and so travel with them once again after you’ve sold out and become a management consultant or some-such; (it didn’t work for me: frankly I haven’t a clue which airlines I got good deals from as a student, I just remember being quite gleeful at having saved a pot of money) Incidentally they have some quite good deals on cell phones too. For more information on that see my guide: cheapest ways to call home from Europe.
This article was written in Autumn/Fall 2009 and is reviewed at least every six months to make sure it's all spangly and up to date!
Add this page to your favorite Social Bookmarking websites
