Revealed: flight-booking hacks that can save you cash from buzai232's blog

Back in the day, smart travellers could make savings by flying out on Tuesdays instead of the weekend, or switching to smaller airports. But times change – and so do airline pricing models. We analysed three years of Skyscanner booking data,Cheap Flights from Shanghai to Phuket and discovered some surprising new money-saving tricks. Lots of us research our holiday plans during the week, then discuss the options with our travelling companions at the weekend.

But if you go online on a Saturday to buy your tickets, you could be paying over the odds. Airline pricing models are fluid, so a price you see one day (or even minute!) might increase or decrease the next. The airlines keep their pricing model data close to their chests, so there’s no set rule about when is the best time to whip out your plastic. However, looking at three years’ worth of data (2015-2017), we found that travellers who bought their tickets on a Saturday paid on average 5% more than those who went online to make their purchase on a Monday. On a £500 flight, that’s £25. While it might not make a huge difference for the cheapest fares (after all, how much lower can a £9.99 flight go?), for group trips or pricey flights, it could be worth the wait.

Want to increase your odds of booking at the right time? Check out the Best Time to Book tool, which gives an indication of the best time to book your tickets between set routes for hundreds of destinations – and the cheapest months to travel, too. So whether you want to book a dream trip to Tokyo or a citybreak to Krakow, it’ll tell you how far ahead to book – and which months to travel – to maximise your chances of the lowest fares.