When is the best time to book a flight? If you’ve been a traveler for many years, you probably once heard that you should shop around for flights on a specific day of the week—most likely Tuesday—to get the lowest possible airfare.
But is that still true? Is there still a cheapest day to book flights? If so, what day of the week is that?
Bottom Line Personal asked travel expert John E. DiScala, founder of the website JohnnyJet.com, for guidance on how to find cheap flights, whether it’s by booking on certain days of the week or using other strategies.
It Used to Be True
Until the mid-1990s, airlines used systems that were updated with new prices once or twice a week, usually on Tuesdays or Wednesdays, and so those were the best days to book flights. But by the mid-2010s—with the advent of online travel booking, multi-airline search engines and discount carriers—the industry switched to a continuous or dynamic pricing model that pulls on massive data sources to generate literally thousands of possible price points at a time. That means new fares come online around the clock, all day long and all week long. In other words: No, you won’t save money on fares by strategically choosing the day of the week on which you book.
Other Ways to Save
But just because you can’t get a bargain by booking on a Tuesday anymore doesn’t mean that you can’t save on fares. There are plenty of other good strategies…
Use fare alerts
If you search for flights on Kayak, Google Flights, Expedia or another site, you can set yourself up to receive alerts for when prices drop on the tickets you’re seeking without having to keep re-entering your search parameters. You don’t have to actually book a flight to get the alerts, and often you can get them as far in advance as 331 days.
Best: Search for flights on Google Flights, but then go to the airline’s website to book directly. Booking directly makes it less complicated to change your reservation if you need to.
Keep shopping after you book
Sometimes a fare will drop after you’ve booked your flight. As long as you haven’t reserved a basic economy ticket and the ticket is not nonrefundable, you can cancel your flight and purchase a new ticket at the lower price point.
Fly when others aren’t flying
The lowest fares usually are for low-demand flight days and times. If you have the flexibility, book for your destination’s shoulder season…choose mid-week or Saturday flights…or select “on or around” dates rather than narrowing your search criteria to specific days.
Call the airline
If you’re disappointed with what you’re seeing on a meta-search engine such as Google Flights, try calling the airline directly to see what price you can get. It’s worth a try.
Buy two tickets
For long journeys, you might do better buying separate tickets for each leg. Example: Instead of paying $3,000 for a one-way ticket from New York to Sardinia, buy a $700 ticket to London…spend the night in a hotel…change airports…and fly the rest of the way for $150. Even if your layover costs $400, you got to spend a night in London and still saved $1,750.
