August may be the best time to book cheap flights for travel between November and January. Skyscanner found that last year, holiday-related flights booked in the 33rd week of the year were the most affordable. So booking flights the week of August 10th could save you the most money. So where do you need to look and what should you do to get the best bang for your travel buck?
1. Look for airline tweets – the best deals could pop up at any time and only last a few hours!2. Sign up for alerts e.g. Airfare watchdog’s fare alerts and newsletter that sends cheap flight deals based on your home airport.3. Lean on websites that do a lot of the leg work for you – sites like Skyscanner are a big help as well as sites that offer “price drop payback” (if the price goes down before your trip, they mail you a voucher for up to $100 per ticket.)3. Choose your timing carefully – Friday’s and Sundays are the busiest and most expensive. Red-eyes are always a good deal.4. Keep extras in mind eg. airlines asking for extra bag fees; this year most domestic airlines have started charging for the first checked bag onwards.5. Be open to trying new places to get the most bang for your travel buck. Suggestions include Greece (given its current economic crisis this is an obvious one- quieter areas like Paros/Skiathos) Honduras (comparable to the Caribbean in aesthetics but a fraction of the cost),Puerto Rico (cheap flights, great weather and a tone of activities on offer) Las Vegas (believe it or not it offers some great and affordable entertainment around Christmas) or for snow consider places like Stratton, VT, (not only one of the Northeast’s most beautiful ski resorts, but it also boasts amazing terrain and one of the most reasonable lift ticket programs in America)