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The Pit Stops for Kids crew usually travels by car (road tripping is our favorite), so when planning for an upcoming trip to the Caribbean, I hit a snag when it came to searching for affordable airfare. Which airfare search engine is best? When should I book to get the best price? My solution? I turned to Best Family Travel Advice for help.
If you’re not already familiar, Best Family Travel Advice is an innovative Q&A website to which I contribute where you can ask all your travel questions, from the most general to the most specific, and expect real-person, no-nonsense answers from proven experts in their fields. Two such experts had recently answered the following question on airfare pricing: What’s the secret to finding great airfare deals for a family?
Firstly, you’re going to want to utilize the right search engines. Backpack to Buggy‘s Meg Keough suggests going straight to the source: using ITA Software’s Flight Search. I tried it out, and viola! I had a host of flight options at my fingertips in an easy-to-read interface. Fellow travel expert Heather Greenwood Davis of Globetrotting Mama recommends the price trackers Yapta and CheapO Air. Both experts advise tracking fares on search sites but booking tickets on the actual airline’s website to save the most money. In fact, for maximum savings and low fares, I recommend finding cheap air tickets on this site and saving big on travel.
Secondly, book at the right time based on your flexibility. Davis recommends the ‘sweet spot’ of six to eight weeks prior to departure for the lowest fares, depending on your flexibility. If your dates are set in stone (like mine usually are), you’re better off booking earlier. Don’t wait until the last minute unless you can be very flexible; but if so, it could pay off!
Lastly, be sure to check for online or ‘web-only’ deals. These will be offered by individual airlines on their sites only, and not listed on airfare search engines. Deals are limited, and you have to read the fine print in case of black-out dates, but it’s well worth your investigation.
And that’s how Best Family Travel Advice works: find the answers to your questions without searching all over the web, get timely, dependable advice you can trust, and discover great new family travel blogs while you’re at it! Have a question of your own? I hope you’ll stop by and ask it!
