Speaker 1: How to avoid the most common airfare booking mistakes.
Speaker 2: I'm Rich Demiro. This is Rich on Tech Daily.
Speaker 3: Happy Monday to you. Just got back.
Speaker 1: From San Francisco, more specifically Petaluma. If you didn't hear
Speaker 1: over the weekend, I was filling in for Leo Laporte
Speaker 1: on his Tech Guy radio show, which is on a
Speaker 1: bunch of radio stations nationwide. Got to go up to
Speaker 1: the Twit studios to do that and it was a blast.
Speaker 1: So if you didn't hear that over the weekend, I'll
Speaker 1: post the audio.
Speaker 2: From the show in today's show notes.
Speaker 3: All Right, now, let's talk about travel.
Speaker 1: This is one of my favorite topics booking airfare because
Speaker 1: I'm always searching for a fair whether it's to go
Speaker 1: home back to New Jersey where I'm from, somewhere on
Speaker 1: vacation or just dreaming most of the time, or somewhere
Speaker 1: for business.
Speaker 2: And Hopper is one of the tools that I love
Speaker 2: to use.
Speaker 1: This is an app that kind of analyzes billions of
Speaker 1: daily flight searches fifteen billion, they say a day, and
Speaker 1: they analyze all this stuff to help give you the
Speaker 1: best information when it comes to booking airfare.
Speaker 3: And what they really do is give you perspective.
Speaker 1: On an airfare. So let's say you're traveling to Hawaii.
Speaker 1: You find an airfare of five hundred dollars, they're going
Speaker 1: to tell you if that's a good deal based on
Speaker 1: the dates and times you're going, because sometimes airfares are
Speaker 1: just more expensive, and they have that historical data to
Speaker 1: let you know.
Speaker 3: So they say they looked at all this stuff.
Speaker 1: And found the most common booking mistakes, and you could
Speaker 1: be losing out as much as five hundred and seventy
Speaker 1: one dollars on domestic trips wow, and a whopping nineteen
Speaker 1: hundred and sixty one dollars on international trips.
Speaker 2: So here are their costliest mistakes.
Speaker 1: Number one, you're an impulse bier. Average cost forty six
Speaker 1: dollars on domestic one thirty nine on international. Hopper found
Speaker 1: that two out of three ticket prices will drop at
Speaker 1: some point within twenty four hours of the original search
Speaker 1: or booking, so they say it pays to wait, which
Speaker 1: is interesting because most of the time, when you find
Speaker 1: a fair, you think that it's going to go up
Speaker 1: immediately because you just found it and it's in your browser.
Speaker 1: But apparently that's not the case, and Hopper also says
Speaker 1: keep in mind, most major carriers in the US allow
Speaker 1: you to cancel your booking within twenty four hours of
Speaker 1: purchase for free. Now, yes, that is true, but I
Speaker 1: will tell you my experience with United Airlines because I
Speaker 1: did take advantage of that one time.
Speaker 2: And here's what happened.
Speaker 1: They canceled the flight, but they did not automatically refund
Speaker 1: me the fair so it kind of stayed in the
Speaker 1: system as a credit and I was like, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: I want my money back, and so I had to
Speaker 1: call and get that back.
Speaker 2: So just keep that in mind.
Speaker 1: Your experience could vary depending on the airline that you're using.
Speaker 1: But I'm just telling you that so you know, all right.
Speaker 1: Number two costliest mistake. You're not checking alternate airports. Average
Speaker 1: costs thirty two bucks domestic, ninety nine dollars international. So
Speaker 1: they say, if there's an alternate airport, you can save
Speaker 1: an average of ten percent.
Speaker 2: And let's just look at the LA Area.
Speaker 1: You've got Lax, you've got Burbank, you've got Ontario, you've
Speaker 1: got Long Beach, lots of different airports that you can
Speaker 1: fly into, and depending on where you live, one of
Speaker 1: these might even be more convenient. But again, if you're
Speaker 1: open to these things, you could save some cash. Number three,
Speaker 1: you're not being.
Speaker 2: Flexible with dates.
Speaker 1: They say sixty five dollars on domestic, one ninety eight
Speaker 1: on international, and that is true. In general, Flying on
Speaker 1: Friday is going to cost you twenty percent more than
Speaker 1: flying on the cheapest day. In general, Saturday night days
Speaker 1: are going to cost you four percent more. And let's
Speaker 1: face it, if you're going on a weekend trip, everyone
Speaker 1: wants to go on Friday.
Speaker 2: Return on Sunday.
Speaker 1: Tuesday usually the cheapest day to fly, not necessarily the
Speaker 1: cheapest day of book though, so keep that in mind.
Speaker 2: You have to be flexible with your dates. And I've
Speaker 2: run into this all the time.
Speaker 1: Your kids have certain dates off for spring break, or
Speaker 1: a couple days off during the week because of a
Speaker 1: school program or the teachers are out, and those are
Speaker 1: the best days to fly for you personally. But if
Speaker 1: you extend it a day on either side, you might
Speaker 1: save a lot more money.
Speaker 2: All right. Number four, you're booking too late.
Speaker 1: Average cost one hundred and thirty nine dollars on domestic,
Speaker 1: five twenty nine on international. Hopper says, gone are the
Speaker 1: days when you could land a last minute deal because
Speaker 1: the airline discus they had spare seats.
Speaker 2: Now this is all done by.
Speaker 1: Computers, so clearly algorithms are at play here. They're making
Speaker 1: sure that every plane is sold out or even over sold.
Speaker 1: This really comes into play whether you're looking at business
Speaker 1: or leisure routes. So for instance, business routes, the best
Speaker 1: time to buy is three months before departure. When it
Speaker 1: comes to consumer routes, it's actually better to buy about
Speaker 1: a month in advance of departure. And finally, number five,
Speaker 1: you're booking too early. So again you don't want a
Speaker 1: book too late, but you don't want to book too early.
Speaker 1: So airlines put their flights on sale eleven months before departure.
Speaker 1: But according to Hopper's research, you don't really find any
Speaker 1: deals until about one hundred and fifty days prior to
Speaker 1: take off. That's about five months before departure. So if
Speaker 1: you book more than six months ahead, that can actually
Speaker 1: cost you. Because the airlines are setting their prices conservatively,
Speaker 1: all those people that are booking early, they're sort of
Speaker 1: paying the most. And I will just tell you from
Speaker 1: what I've noticed in tracking prices, they go up and
Speaker 1: down almost every day and for instance, a flight I
Speaker 1: was tracking from Lax to Newark to go home, it
Speaker 1: was five p sixty, then three eighty the next day,
Speaker 1: then four forty two, then five forty seven.
Speaker 2: So it goes up and down.
Speaker 1: And that's the beauty of having an app like Hopper
Speaker 1: or using something like Google Flights to track your prices
Speaker 1: is that you can see, look, okay, this is a
Speaker 1: comfortable price for me. I'm just gonna go ahead and
Speaker 1: book it. So again, Hopper is a great app. Definitely
Speaker 1: check it out. Download it. Just go to my website
Speaker 1: richontech dot tv for the link.
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Speaker 2: Thanks so much for listening. I'm Rich Demiro. I'll talk
Speaker 2: to you real soon.