When is the best time to book a flight? If you’re an expat who travels regularly between the UK and USA, you’re familiar with the rise and dip in airfare. But you can cut down on costs by booking at a particular time. One search website claims to have found the best month and best day of the week to get the best deal.
Booking in advance can significantly reduce the cost of a flight. Image: Westend61 / Getty
Flight prices fluctuate wildly within a narrow period of time but fare aggregator and search website Kiwi.com has crunched the numbers to find the optimum time to bag the best airfare. It analysed millions of flights out of the UK to the USA from 2016 onwards and found that November is the cheapest month in which to fly. Average airfare works out at £530.31 (US$695) per person. That’s because off-peak travel tends to kick in at this time of year and traditionally, most people just don’t travel between now and the first weeks of December.
November appears to be the cheapest month to travel from the UK to the USA, according to Kiwi.com. Image by Jose Luis Pelaez Inc/Getty Images
At the other end of the scale, the month of July is the most expensive time to travel from the UK to the USA with average flight costs working out at £848.13 (US$1111) per person. The price of a flight also fluctuates by departure and booking date. It appears that Tuesday is the cheapest day of the week to book a flight from the UK to the USA (£615/US$806) and Tuesday is also the cheapest departure date (£575.70/US$753), according to the advice from Kiwi.com. The most expensive day to fly out is Saturday with average airfare working out at £700.20 (US$917).
What about travel to other destinations? For domestic, short-haul and long-haul flights out of the UK, travellers can save up to 48% when booking up to 42 days in advance (that’s roughly six weeks), according to research released earlier this year. The study by Opodo found that travel costs tend to spike up to seven days before departure date.
Airfare can rise and fall from one end of the week to the next. Photo by Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty Images
If you’re looking for a cheap deal it’s always best to book in advance and travel off-season but other factors can also influence the cost of travel such as fuel costs, exchange rates, major events, accidents and weather. These rules aren’t set in stone but some careful planning can significantly reduce the costs and stress levels.
To compare more airfares, visit Kiwi.com.
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