Five Ways to Screw Up Holiday Airfare Purchases
Hi, I’m Rick Seaney, the CEO of FareCompare.com. Today, I’m going to talk a little bit about the five ways you can completely screw up your holiday purchases this year. The first way to screw up is not to set any airfare alerts and even worse, ignore the ones you get.
We have airfare loads now on the iPhone. We have them on our site. Any result page on our site, you can always hit save in my search and you automatically get alerts. In the internet age, when you have an alert that’s being sent to you and you ignore it, everybody else is getting those same alerts so they're we go book those tickets and those seats will be gone when you go and you give it a shake with your spouse.
The second way to screw up is not to bother to check our Peak Travel Search Hearts Chart. This chart is one of the best things that we’ve come up with that shows at the airlines are charging anywhere from $10.00 to $30.00, for example, Sunday and Monday after thanksgiving, $30.00 each way. And if you look at this chart in our quick link section on our homepage, you’ll see exactly which states have the biggest chart which can correspond to the days that are going to be the most busy and the most costly.
The third way to screw up is not to have any flexibility on the day or time that you leave on the holidays. I know everybody wants to leave on a Friday and come on a Sunday especially since the holidays are on Saturday this year. But the bottom line is that you pick your days wisely especially for families for you can save hundreds of dollars. You might have to look at a connecting flight. You might have to be flexible on a certain day or come, go and leave a certain day. You know even if you’re going to stay another night, that’s not bad with the family.
The fourth way to screw up is to ignore the fare compare baggage fee comparison chart. Bag fees are up to 8 billion dollars last year for all fees. Bag fees are a chunk of that. This year, 9 billion for all fees. The bag fees are a big chunk of that. That’s a lot of revenue for the airlines. Check the chart out, airlines like Southwest and Jet Blue don’t have bag fees. You can get around them by using some of the airlines credit cards like Continental and Delta.
The bottom line is a family of four even if you just check the first bag can be up to $200.00 for the entire purchase for your family. So, just be careful and don’t end up at the airport caught blindsided by check bag fees.
The fifth way to screw up is to shop for your airline tickets over the weekend and not on Tuesday afternoon. Typically what’s been happening over the last really two years is airlines have been coming out with sales, usually three-day sales that start on Tuesday. They file them very late in the evening on Monday. All the other airlines scrambled to match during the morning hours so start shopping Tuesday afternoon. You can shop all the way through the Thursday. A lot of these deals have been pulled on Thursday nights. So, be very careful about shopping on the weekends. I’m not saying you shouldn’t shop on the weekends, but if you are, you’re probably paying too much.
I want everybody to remember that the holiday prizes are going to be extremely high this year. So A, don’t procrastinate. Start shopping right now, purchase thanksgiving no later than mid October. Purchase your Christmas and New Year’s tickets no later than the end of November. And the bottom line is if you procrastinate in a way, you’ll be paying $700.00 to $800.00 or $900.00. Go ahead and pay that $300.00 or $400.00or $500.00 dollars right now. Pull the trigger because it’s not going to get any better.
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