Top 10 Tips for Booking Holiday Flights

• Introduction
• 1. Factor New Airline Fees into Travel Costs
• 2. Monitor Your Route for Best Fares
• 3. Don’t Hold Out for Last-Minute Deals
• 4. Be Flexible: Avoid Peak Travel Days
• 5. Book a Flight & Hotel Package for Overall Value
• 6. Fly on the Holiday Itself
• 7. Consider Alternate Airports
• 8. Shop Around on Many Sites, Including Airlines’
• 9. Be Prepared to Layover to Cut Costs
• 10. Get Grounded: Look into Trains, Buses & Cars

Shop Around on Many Sites, Including Airlines’

Don’t leave any stone unturned when scouting airfare deals on the Net. ShermansTravel’s nifty QuickSearch tool offers a great means of searching multiple sites (like Travelocity, Expedia, Orbitz, and Kayak, among others), while only having to enter your travel information once. We might be biased, but it really does make comparison shopping a breeze! Don’t forget to go straight to airlines’ websites, as well: Popular budget carriers like Southwest and JetBlue, for instance, don’t list their fares with most online travel agents, and you can also save on any third-party ticketing fees by booking through the airlines’ sites directly. You may also want to check out web tools like FareCompare (www.farecompare.com), Bing Travel (www.bing.com/travel), or Yapta.com (www.yapta.com), which serve to research and predict fare prices and trends – they’ll give you a good idea of the going rate of your trip – and whether to buy now or to wait.

See United States Travel Guide