8 tips to snag the lowest fare

By Karen Aho

Use the airline's pricing logic to your advantage.

Because fares are based on supply and demand, ask yourself which fares have the highest demand. When do business travelers prefer to fly? Vacationers? Which airports do they use? Then avoid those situations. As Internet Travel Tips editor Bob Cowen likes to say, "Be a contrarian."

Fly in the middle. Search for fares in the middle of the day, the middle of the week, the middle of the weekend. Business travelers fly a lot of Monday mornings and Friday evenings. Rush-hour logic applies. Start with a broad time window, then be flexible. Kayak lets you select a time range. Expedia will pull a monthly calendar displaying low fares on other days. Still, be open to the occasional anomaly: a cheap fare on a Friday night, for instance.

Accept multiple legs. Frequent travelers place a premium on time. If you favor price, let the airlines shuttle you about the country in their low-demand, available seats. Just bring snacks.

Book early. Buying 21 days out doesn't guarantee the best advance fare. Airlines set aside a certain number of discount seats many months ahead. If someone buys one, not only is it gone, but other fares on the flight can increase, based on a new supply-and-demand model. This can happen instantaneously.

• Talk back: What's your strategy for finding cheaper airfares?

Don't delay. In any minute, more than 2 million transactions take place in global distribution systems (GDS) around the world, more than 50,000 every second during peak times, according to the GDS Sabre Travel Network. Farecast reports that 50% of fares are gone within 50 hours of a price drop. To help, Orbitz displays the number of seats that remain in a fare.

Check alternate airports. Some low-fare airlines fly point-to-point at smaller airports. Use a shopping tool that finds or automatically searches nearby airports.

Find new tools. Online shopping engines have provided access to information and, as a result, lower fares. New tools do even more. Farecast will predict whether a fare for a selected trip is expected to rise or fall in the next seven days and even send an alert when it does.

"Talk about the early bird getting the worm," Cowen said. Yapta will track flights and alert you when the fare drops or when airlines issue a post-sale refund.

Buy direct. When shopping online, check to see if the site links you directly to the airline for the purchase, as Kayak does. You might avoid extra charges, as well as the possibility of missing an e-mail from the airline.

When traveling, be nice. This is Cowen's favorite travel advice. "If you're courteous and professional, someone might go the extra mile." You might not get a dollar discount, but who knows?

I once agreed to switch seats, twice, and did so with a smile. A flight attendant overheard and pulled me up to first class, just for being "gracious."

Updated April 22, 2009