Planning a vacation or holiday trip is either fun and exciting or exhausting and stressful to a person. Why not make it a challenge to benefit yourself and those traveling with you? The more you save on airfare, the more you get to spend on the fun trip you are making plans for. Wouldn’t you rather save on airfare and be able to spend an extra day on your trip or spend the money saved on an added adventure? Perhaps with the money you save on booking cheaper flights, you could upgrade to a nicer hotel stay.

The first thing you should take into consideration when selecting travel flights is knowing the best times to fly. What does that mean? It means that there are certain days that flights cost less when flying. There are also better times to get better flight rates. For instance, not many people prefer to fly the late night or early morning flights so the costs can be much less for those. It’s also cheaper to fly during certain months than others. If you are choosing a trip in the middle of March and April, you will pay a lot more than in January because everyone is buying up tickets for spring break. The same type of scenario goes for holiday seasons. Purchasing way ahead of time during these dates will get you the best rate for them but you will still pay higher than traveling during a non-peak season. You might also want to fly out and return on a Tuesday or Thursday flight instead of a weekend. Flying during the weekend will definitely cost you more.

Here’s another great idea for planning your travel and finding great rates. Select a location that is not as travelled as the most popular destinations. Companies know they can sell more tickets to popular destinations and so you might see that flights to those locations cost a bit more. Consider whether you might save more money by purchasing a ticket to a different location a few hours away and driving the rest of the way in. Or, better yet, travel to a less popular destination and enjoy a vacation there instead of where everyone else is travelling to.

Be cautious of one thing if choosing to travel to a less popular site however. You want to select a place that has a variety of travel carriers. If you fly to a destination that has only a couple of airline companies servicing it, you can bet that there could be a monopoly on the cost of ticket prices to that select destination because the companies know that no other companies provide a flight service there.

Overall, remember this! When planning a trip and looking for the best deals, be open to planning your trip during different dates. This allows you more flexibility with getting the best flight prices available. You can trust that if you can change your dates by a few days or weeks, you might be able to save yourself a few hundred dollars on the purchase of your airline tickets.