5 Ways to Find Dirt Cheap Airline Tickets

Due to the increasing price of airfare you may not be able to afford that dream vacation you were planning - or can you? Finding some dirt cheap airline tickets could be the difference between staying home or flying off to Europe for your next vacation. Granted it will still be somewhat expensive to fly, but what if you could knock a few hundred dollars off the cost of your airfare. By following these 5 tips you'll be able to save money and take that vacation you've been dreaming of.

Buy your tickets in advance to keep them cheap:
By getting your airline tickets several months in advance you can save substantial moolah. This means at least 3 months in advance for traveling domestically and 6 months in advance for traveling internationally. Avoid peak seasons and holidays and keep in mind that the airlines regularly raise prices for tickets 3 weeks, 2 weeks, 1 week and several days before a planned flight. By getting your tickets early you can avoid these price hikes.

Wait until the last minute to buy your ticket:
You can get some great deals by waiting until the last minute, if you're willing to be flexible. Not every flight will have vacancies, but when they do a last minute ticket can provide fantastic savings over a full price fare. Contact the airlines directly or check out sites like TravelZoo where they regularly post dirt cheap last minute deals.

Do your homework:
You shop for other major purchases like appliances and autos, you even shop for groceries sales so why not take some time to do some shopping for your airline tickets as well. Don't take the first fare you find, switch days and times as well as airlines to find the best possible prices for a dirt cheap airline ticket. While you're researching you can sometimes find the deal of a lifetime!

Know the best times to buy airline tickets:
By tracking the prices of airline tickets you'll know exactly when they are the cheapest. You can even use sites like Farecast to get predictions of future airline ticket prices to over 75 U.S. cities. Pretty cool huh? This makes it easy to know if you should buy now or wait it out a bit.

Keep in mind too that early morning and late night flights are usually cheaper as are flights in the middle of the week.

Use ticket discounters:
You might have trouble finding tickets for major airlines through discounters, but they can save you a bundle of money at times. The smaller operations usually offer much cheaper flights because they aren't as popular and don't have advertising budgets that inflate their ticket prices. With the recent hikes in airline ticket prices these discounters are definitely increasing in popularity.

By following these 5 steps you'll find it easy to score dirt cheap airline tickets. Everyone should be able to enjoy the feeling you get when you're able to get a heavily discounted airfare, leaving you more money to enjoy your vacation.