Book tickets online for your trips and get great deals. Here is how

AJ

It is that time of the year when we are all packing our bags to go somewhere. However, with significant capacity reductions all around, airfares have shot up by 25%-40%; it means we are not going to see cheap tickets anytime soon. But, in my few years of a travelling career experience, I have found that a ‘do-it-yourself’ approach using the Internet certainly helps in getting a better deal compared to calling up the next-door travel agent and asking him to book your tickets. Read on here to identify some tried and tested methods to get the best fares online.

1. Fare Search on iXiGO.com: iXiGO.com is a fare comparison tool which compares over 100 travel sites to figure out the best fares for you. So, you’ll need to put in your travel dates and the destination, and you’ll get all the flights available that day, along with a link to the site offering the lowest price for that route. It could be the airline’s own site or it could be a travel website. Also, you will get a fare graph which will tell you the fares for the whole month. Such a fare graph is also available on cleartrip.com.

2. Deals on the Airline’s Website: Airlines do not have to pay a travel agent commission for tickets booked via their own website. So, you can frequently find very low fares at the airline’s own website. For instance, Jet Airways has a ‘Web Special’ fare which it offers only on its own website. Also, airlines tend to discount tickets booked directly. On the Air India website, you can book tickets which are about 10% discounted on the base fare.

Jet Airways runs a 5%-10% discount offer built into tickets booked via their own website, called ‘LoFares’. Sometimes, more discounts are possible on specific routes, in the guise of deals and special offers. SpiceJet was offering a daily discount promo where a new discount code would be put on the website every day. So, do make it a point to scan the airline website before you book that ticket.

3. Book Return Fares: In India, domestic airline tickets are sold as one-way tickets usually and you can fly different airlines for each segment of your travel. However, most airlines now offer ‘return fares’ on their own websites and also via the online travel agents such as Yatra.com, MakeMyTrip.com and others, where you tend to get a lower fare if you buy both the segments with the same airline. IndiGo, Jet Airways, JetKonnect and SpiceJet are some of the airlines offering return fares domestically.

4. Check Your Credit/Debit Cards for Offers: Banks want you to use their cards while airlines and travel agencies want to sell you tickets. So they frequently come together to give out special discount codes to the customers of particular banks which can often give you a discount anywhere between 10% and 30%. So do look up the deals section on the online travel agencies and pay with the appropriate cards if you have them. For a family of four, you could save a lot of money sometimes.

5. Get a Co-branded Card: Like we discussed in the previous issue, airlines tie up with banks to offer ongoing perks to their travellers. If you pick up one of these cards, you could get associated benefits as well. For instance, Jet Airways Citibank Credit Card works to give you a 5% discount on all domestic tickets paid for with the Card and 3% discount on international tickets.

6. Read LiveFromALounge.com: I could not help but close with a plug. I’m trying to get you all the good travel deals and tricks out there in real time, so do keep checking for ongoing deals, offers and tricks of the travel trade.

AJ writes a travel and aviation blog called LiveFromALounge.com and can be reached at [email protected]