Google Flights Knows the Best Time to Book for the Cheapest Plane Tickets

the more you avoid the types of tickets business travelers like—hewing instead to the fares airlines intend for leisure travelers—the better your likelihood of coming across a cheap flight. And the more you remember airfare is volatile, not static, the less tempted you’ll be to settle for a bad fare. After all, if the flight you want is expensive t

KEY TAKEAWAYS Flight search engines, rather than airline websites or OTAs, are the best place to search for cheap flights. It’s best to book directly with the airline if prices are the same as an OTA because your ticket gets issued quicker (minimizing the risk your cheap fare disappears), you’re protected by the 24-hour rule, and it’s simpler to ma

Most of us plan our vacations this way. We search flights to a specific destination for a specific week, see exorbitant fares, and wonder why the hell airfare is so expensive. It’s a natural way of planning vacations. But if you’re hoping for cheap flights, it’s suboptimal at best and counterproductive at worst. Fortunately, there’s a better way, a

Even though it’s easy to pay for convenience, there’s a widespread misconception I want to dispel: Cheap flights don’t have to be inconvenient flights.

Although there’s no static calendar date for when fares are cheapest, there is a framework for when cheap flights are most likely to pop up. I call these Goldilocks Windows.