Where to find the cheapest air tickets
How to find the cheapest airline tickets
[Applause]
the holiday season means a lot of us are
on the move
the busiest travel days of the year fall
between American Thanksgiving and New
Year's but even in cases where people
are traveling to the same destination
it's likely they pay different prices
for their tickets so I'm based here in
London England
and I'm looking to book a flight home to
Canada arriving a few days before
Christmas but when I search for flights
online the prices for a round-trip from
London to Toronto are all over the map
with prices ranging from 1,500 dollars
to more than 3000 dollars for the same
trip on the same day which raises the
question how do airlines set their
prices and how can we as consumers beat
them at their own game
[Music]
airline prices can seem random
and even illogical they're high one week
and low the next and strange long-haul
international flights can be less
expensive than short domestic flights
but there is a method to the madness and
the more you dig into it the more you
see that it is complicated but there's
so much that people can do and a lot of
it's very simple if you see Gilbert
ought on a flight it's safe to assume he
paid less than you did auth runs the
popular travel blog God saved the points
his full-time job is helping travelers
find the best deal so the first thing to
know is that most of the advice you've
heard is pretty terrible there is no
magic day to book flights there are no
crazy tricks about closing your browsers
and reopening it and then calling your
friend and Panama and trying to get him
to book the same ticket none of that is
true what is true are the prices change
all the time
for example let's take another look at
that London to Toronto flight that I'm
hoping to book before Christmas these
are the 7 cheapest non-stop flights
according to my Google search but watch
this I've been refreshing the browser
every few hours for the past few days
and as you can see the prices fluctuate
both up and down seemingly at random
they changed minute-by-minute basis
day-by-day basis and depending on the
day you look the price may be entirely
different the fluctuations are based on
a complex computer algorithm designed to
maximize the airline's profits so as
soon as you're even thinking about
traveling odds top tip is to sign up for
email price alerts on Google flights for
example you can search for all the dates
you want all the places you want and you
just set alerts and you'll get emails
right into your inbox and every price
has change set your flight alerts as
soon as possible but be careful not to
book too early or too late
odd says there is no magic day to book
but that the best prices for domestic
flights usually show up around 26 days
before departure for international
flights your best bet is to book around
60 days ahead midweek is the cheapest
time to fly while mondays and fridays
are the most expensive often a lot of
business travel starts on Monday and
they want to come home on say a Thursday
or a Friday and what the airlines are
doing is they're selling everybody the
same product but depending on who you
are they try and get more out of you
this transportation economist says
competition is key which partly explains
why it's more expensive to fly two hours
from Winnipeg to Churchill Manitoba than
it is to take a 12 hour flight from
Winnipeg across the ocean to Europe even
places that are are just you know served
by only one airline you're going to pay
a lot more it's just really a matter of
what's the competition going to force
the airlines to compete with and
speaking of competition a lot of Asian
airlines are now pushing into the
Canadian market offering cheap flights
from Canada to Asia and dragging prices
down if you're thinking about Hawaii you
might actually do a little bit better
going all the way to Bangkok because
there's never been a more competitive
time to fly and as these budget airlines
start to muscle in the prices become
ultra competitive now most of us know
that you can usually save some money by
booking a connecting flight with at
least one stopover but you can also save
by booking a connecting flight where
your connection is actually your
destination
so let's say you want to travel to
London England it can actually be
cheaper to buy a ticket to Dublin or to
Paris with a stopover in London London
flight deals are non-existent Paris
however is really cheap and their
flights through London to Paris if
you're booking on a one-way basis you
can often skip the second leg of that
trip and save a fortune
so bottom line if you spend a little
time you could save a lot of money by
knowing where and when to book before
ticket prices soared hey thanks for
watching global news if you enjoyed what
you saw please like the video and you
can also hit the subscribe button on
your screen to make sure that you get
all the latest international news and
the best trending video
