Airline special offers. When there are air ticket sales - tricks and subtleties

Buying inexpensive air tickets and information at the Vinsky Forum.

You can buy any air tickets using the website portal. The modern system will allow you to quickly find and book tickets to any destination on regular flights.

Low tariff for electronic tickets.

To choose a plane ticket, on the website, in a special form, you need to indicate some information: the city of departure and the final destination of the trip, dates, number of seats and class. After filling out the web form, click on the “Find” button, and in a few seconds the computer will select the best offers based on your criteria.

You can also set a flexible selection of air tickets by date, even approximately. You just need to check the box next to “± 3 days”, which will give you the opportunity to see the aircraft schedule both for a specific date and for the next 3 days after and before it.

Often, the system provides results within a few minutes. Do not forget that processing a request may take a longer time, since the speed of the search engine is influenced by various indicators: the quality of the Internet connection, the speed of data received from carriers, the power of your PC. Using the “Add to Favorites” button that appears as a result of the search, you can save suitable air tickets.

To the right of the search there are filters, thanks to which you can easily select tickets based on several parameters: transfers, departure time, ticket price, transfer and flight time, airline agency, payment methods, transfer city.

Selection of optimal offers for this month.

The search engine has a functional calendar. If desired, a link is placed on the search result page, clicking on which will open a table of ticket prices for each day in the period. This way you can see how much a plane ticket will cost on different days. If time is not important, you can adjust the flight date by selecting the optimal cost.

Direct purchase of tickets takes place on the pages of the portal’s partner website. The service operates without any commissions or other types of payment for ordering tickets and bookings. That is, you get absolutely free access to the service database. After clicking on the “Buy” button, the system will redirect the user to a website where they can complete the purchase.

Sometimes it happens when the tickets you are interested in for a specific route and cost are not available. In this case, the service offers inexpensive tickets that are on sale.

Since we told you on which portal you can easily and profitably buy plane tickets, all that remains is to pick up the document. Purchased electronic tickets are sent directly to the email you provide when paying. Please check that your address and mailbox are correct. If you do not see a message with an air ticket, check the “Spam” section. Print the document and show it when checking in at the airport.

How to find an inexpensive plane ticket (Vinsky Forum).

There are many indicators that significantly affect the ticket price..

If you listen to the following recommendations, you can purchase inexpensive air tickets.
- Purchase or book an air ticket in advance
- Travel in economy class
- Find routes to nearby cities
- Track special offers
- Book a flight ticket online
- Best bookings for round trip air tickets
- Keep track of seasonality

If you are still wondering where to buy an air ticket, use the website portal. Save time!

So, are you wondering when airline tickets are on sale?
Perhaps someone will exclaim, sales are rare, just like holidays. To some extent, those who say so are right, except that sales of air tickets, unlike holidays, are not at all predictable.

An air ticket sale is simply a promotion by an airline that has discounted its air tickets for one of two reasons:
Reason for sale 1. The airline has a shortage of passengers on a specific route and one of the fastest solutions is to make a significant discount on air tickets to this route
Reason for sale 2. The airline decided to establish itself more strongly in a specific direction, i.e. attract more passengers than before. Discounts on air tickets are the best way to increase passenger flow.

And yet, when do airline tickets go on sale? If you are flying out, say, in a week or two, then the likelihood of air tickets on sale for your desired destination is virtually zero. If you decide to buy an air ticket solely on sale, then it is best to start monitoring sales 2-3 months before the planned departure.

When purchasing air tickets on sale, you need to take into account that you will be very limited in time. Those. the air ticket must be purchased before a specific date; as a rule, each sale indicates the beginning and end of the sale. Plus, air tickets on sale have restrictions on travel dates. Those. we can say with almost 100% certainty that an air ticket purchased on sale must be used within specific dates. Each sale mentions an initial departure date before which you cannot depart and a return date after which you cannot return. Of course, you can choose both departure and return dates outside of the sale dates, but in this case the airfare will be more expensive since you only get a discount on one-way airfare.

When selling air tickets, you need to take into account the following nuance: the cheaper the air ticket, the less chance you have of having time to buy it. During a sale, a simple rule applies: if you are satisfied with the price, then immediately book your flight ticket. A delay of even 5-10 minutes can cost you the fact that you simply won’t have time to buy the airline ticket you like. The number of air tickets for each sale is limited, and thousands of people monitor these sales every day.

Another point that you need to know during a sale is that the lower the price, the greater the likelihood that there are only a few such air tickets. This is a standard advertising gimmick. An airline discounts its airfare and let's say you're looking at an almost gigantic 70%-80% discount. Tempting right? Many sites are picking up the news, the airline is receiving a new influx of customers, but only two or three lucky ones manage to buy tickets at such a low price. Why only two or three? An airline ticket sale never specifies the exact number of discounted airline tickets; the sale only lists the plural or singular number. Those. One discounted air ticket is on sale, or cheap air tickets are on sale with a 70% discount. How much is two air tickets? That's right, these are already air tickets. This is what the other side of some overly cheap and very tempting airline ticket sales looks like. By offering two or three airline tickets at a huge discount, the airline gets a ton of free advertising on thousands of travel sites.

How to become the lucky one who managed to buy a discounted air ticket during the next air ticket sale? There are two options:
Method 1. You can independently go around airline websites every day and check if there is a new airfare sale. Please note that the sale can start on any day and at any time of the day. Those. You may have checked a specific airline, closed the airline’s website in your browser, and literally 5 minutes later this airline had a sale. Just five minutes, is that fair? You checked the sites every day, but you only needed 5 minutes, and the discounted air tickets went into someone else’s pocket.

Method 2. Forget about all the airline websites and start going about your daily business, while not forgetting to write down the link to the sales monitoring site AviaSovet.ru. What is the AviaSovet.ru website? In addition to the ability to check air ticket prices for all airlines with one click of the mouse, it is also an aggregator site that uses a unique mechanism to collect air ticket sales from hundreds of airlines. All you need to do is check this site periodically; if some airline has a sale, news about it will appear on the AviaSovet.ru website in literally a matter of minutes. Sales on this site are updated every hour.
These are just airline promotions associated with a certain event or the well-known “last minute tickets”. You definitely need luck to get a good gift. You understand perfectly well that you can hope, because hope dies last. We do not recommend waiting specifically for the required sale - it is a risky business. Perhaps a “delicious promotion or sale” will not be your guest. Therefore, we analyze the cost of tickets from neighboring cities, looking at all airports located in the vicinity of the desired one as the place of arrival. We don’t try to get to our destination on a direct flight if the price with a transfer will be much cheaper.

Hence, the big minus is that the destinations and dates are too limited. Do not rule out the possibility that in the future you will become a participant in any suitable air ticket sale promotion. The search engine will find you the optimal offer in a matter of minutes, conveniently grouping the data and displaying it in a convenient list. And in addition, subscribe to news from all airlines you are interested in, then be sure to re-read them immediately so as not to be late.

There is a so-called “weekend rule” - on the night from Saturday to Sunday you need to be at the point of arrival. The price of such air tickets is much cheaper.

Well, if it so happens that the moment has come and you are about to fly out, but you couldn’t buy anything on sale, then it makes sense to use the tips below, which can often help you buy an air ticket even cheaper than on sale.
Tip 1. Buy tickets online as this is the cheapest and most convenient way. Check the information received from search engines, airlines and booking systems, because prices for the same ticket can change not only from the date, even the source and time of the search.

Tip 2. Fly with budget airlines, air discounters or low-cost airlines. Cheap, but cheerful. When purchasing air tickets, carefully study all possible pitfalls and calculate the final price, because if you unexpectedly pay extra, the cost of the ticket can be compared with the cost of a regular airline. It is better to book additional services along with the ticket.
Tip 3. Budget airlines in Europe have liberal pricing. If you live in St. Petersburg, then the airline Ryan Air, which flies from Finland throughout Europe with transfers, is worthy of your attention. The prices are often pleasantly surprising; sometimes air tickets are sold at a generally ridiculous price of 10-13 euros per ticket. Of course, there are significant restrictions attached to such prices, but otherwise it’s worth it. And then, don’t worry, for such a low price you definitely won’t be standing in the cabin of the plane, you will be given a personal seat. Among the low-cost airlines, it is also worth noting Wizz Air and Easy Jet. Often, cheap air tickets to Europe can be found on Air Baltic, Air Berlin and the Austrian airline NICI if your departure city is Moscow or St. Petersburg. Among the non-budget airlines, it is worth noting the German airline Lufthansa. Of course, the prices for air tickets are not like those of budget airlines, but the quality is correspondingly German! You can compare prices and search for all airlines with one click of the mouse on the AviaSovet.ru website

AviaSovet.ru – Search and compare prices for air tickets on hundreds of travel agency and airline sites in one click.

Tip 4. Purchase and book air tickets in advance. The principle applies to all airlines: “you buy cheap now - you fly in about six months.” The price of tickets purchased closer to the departure date can be several times higher. It should be taken into account that even the most expensive airlines, starting from February until April, form special price initiatives in popular resort places of the world for almost the entire year. This means that you can plan your vacation something like this: visit France for the May holidays, spend your summer vacation in Spain, and fly to Germany for Christmas, while buying air tickets several months in advance. Nobody forbids you to go the opposite way - to visit some country of your dreams out of season, grabbing a cheap ticket there, since there is no demand for it at this time of year.

Tip 5. Receive additional discounts by applying preferential rates: discounts for children, infants, students, groups of 10 people or more, this may include purchasing round-trip tickets or online using a credit card, etc. Find out about such opportunities on airline websites. A great option is to use bonus programs, although each company has different schemes. Some, often low-cost airlines, offer the purchase of a bonus card subject to certain rules for a specified time. Others allow you to accumulate miles and then exchange them for discounts or airline tickets. This scheme applies to promotions of Aeroflot, Lufthansa, and British air ways.
And finally, a simple rule: “Don’t expect that tickets will be given away completely for nothing, if in your opinion the offer is good, take it so as not to be left with nothing,” never forget to use our short tips and the AviaSovet.ru search engine

AviaSovet.ru is a new generation air search engine that allows you to find the cheapest air tickets.

Good afternoon, travelers!

Today we’ll talk about where to look for discounts on air tickets, special offers and airline sales. What discounts are offered, how and where to purchase air travel at a special offer - I will tell you this in my new article.

The best way to save on your upcoming trip is to buy discounted air tickets.

A reduced flight price will also help you choose a carrier company and country of departure, with a wide variety.

What discounts are there?

Usually they launch promotions that apply to economy class fares; they do not apply to business class.

In addition to seasonal airline sales and super offers, you can take advantage of discounts for age and social categories:

• Children under 2 years old can reduce the ticket price up to 90%, for older adults 2 - 12 years old - up to 50%.
• Young people under 24 years of age can purchase tickets up to 25% cheaper upon presentation of a document confirming their age. Each country has special tariffs for young people and rules for their use.
• Students aged 26 to 31 receive a discount on the ISIC international student rate.
• Pensioners aged 55 - 65 years can reduce the price by 15 - 25%.
• The family tariff entitles one of the spouses to receive a 50% discount, but it can be used a limited number of times.
• Special fare for a group of passengers of 7 - 10 people flying together on the same dates and on the same route.

Airlines usually offer promotions on tickets 45 days before departure, thus attracting passengers with low prices. After which their cost begins to rise, but if closer to the departure date the plane is still not fully equipped, there is a chance to purchase a ticket much cheaper by 30 - 50%.

We must remember that all profitable promotions are quickly sold out, since there are few offers, and there are many people who want to save money. Therefore, if you see a favorable price, hurry up to buy or book a ticket.

Always have your passport and card details with you for prompt payment. If you are registered on the carrier's website or use a browser with autofill, then many of your data will be saved from past purchases, it will be easier and faster for you to fill out a new form.

When a new promotion is launched, the time frame for purchasing a ticket and its validity period are indicated. That is, you can and should buy it at a special price in the near future, but use it for a certain time and fly away in a few months.

As a rule, they are non-refundable, which is why the cost is so low. Therefore, when buying such a ticket, you must be sure that you will be able to fly on these days, having a planned vacation or a free work schedule.

If you want to always be aware of promotions and discounts, subscribe to the airline's newsletter.

When searching for special offers, it is convenient to use the calendar and low price map, which are available on many search sites. You will be able to see which days and which countries have the best prices, and choose the appropriate option.

Websites with promotional air tickets

Sale tickets can be purchased online from many websites.

1. Official websites of airlines

Discounted tickets are indicated with a promo icon. Most often, sales are launched during times of low demand for flights - in spring, autumn and after the New Year holidays. But no one can predict the exact start date of the campaign. This depends on the companies themselves, which analyze the congestion and popularity of flights, and compare past and current prices for transportation.

In case of a shortage of passengers and deviations from sales plans, air carriers use promotions to attract new customers and fill the plane with them. To always be aware of the best prices, just subscribe to their newsletter, and you will always be one of the first to buy cheap tickets online.

Flights within Russia and to other countries:

• Aeroflot
• Victory
• Lufthansa
• airBaltic
• Pegasus Airlines

You will find more low-cost airlines and low-cost airlines in our article.

2. Mobile applications of airlines and search aggregators

Since many people use the Internet most often from their smartphone, most sites have their own applications for mobile devices. The advantage in this case is the ability to quickly receive push notifications about when profitable options will appear.

3. Search aggregators, each of which has a section with special offers from air carriers:

• Skyscanner
• Aviasales

4. Specialized sites where discounts from all airlines on any routes are collected:

• Pirates
• Vandrouki
• Vezdelet
• Skydiscounter
• BudgetWorld

5. Travel agency websites

Sometimes it is more profitable to buy a last-minute tour, which will be cheaper than buying an air ticket. This applies to long flights to Southeast Asian countries, for example. Plus, you will have a bonus hotel where you can stay or find another more convenient option.

Check out the sale tickets from these operators:

• Tez Tour
• Fly.ru

6. Travel forums

For example, the Vinsky forum. Here you can not only find low prices and useful information, but also communicate with travelers, find a travel companion or ask questions about the destination and airline services you are interested in.

Use all these services and fly more often thanks to great discounts on air travel. If you find an interesting offer from an airline or a ticket sale, share with our readers in the comments below and also ask your questions. Until next time.

Mega-instructions on how to find and buy plane tickets for the cheapest price! 11 tricks that will help you significantly reduce the price of air tickets.

• How to learn how to search and book tickets correctly?
• How to take full advantage of all the opportunities provided by airlines and ticket search engines?
• How to break the system and force airlines and agents to turn their clever tricks against themselves?
• How to deal a crushing blow to the Airline Empire, recognize the Force and use it for the benefit of free travel?
• How the hell can you finally learn to travel a lot and cheaply?

The answers are in this article!

Reading articles and news from the site, you have repeatedly noticed a number of ways to buy air tickets at the lowest price, sometimes at an indecently low price! In this article, I will systematize all the knowledge and skills of searching and buying cheap plane tickets and briefly cover them in 11 points. I love to travel, fly on planes and always try to do it cheaply or even for free. I have accumulated enough knowledge and skills - now I share everything I know here.

I will list ways to purchase cheap tickets in increasing order of their coolness and non-triviality. Let's start with basic knowledge , which any independent traveler should have, and gradually we will come to advanced skills and the most cunning ways to reduce the price of air tickets, which will be useful to know even for an experienced traveler.

The article is long (what can you do, there are a lot of tips), so be patient - who knows, maybe it will change your life, significantly increasing the time you will spend flying and traveling.

Go!

How to Find Cheap Flights: The Basics

1. Use the capabilities of search engines 100%

Search engines for cheap air tickets (aggregators) are the easiest and most reliable way to find tickets at the lowest price. The essence of their work is to compare ticket prices for your desired destination among hundreds of airlines and all major agencies and find the best offer.

If you are looking for tickets exclusively on airline websites or, God forbid, typing queries into Yandex or Google like “buy cheap Aeroflot tickets” (I checked, many people do this), or don’t buy tickets online at all, but go to the ladies in ticket offices, then the cheapest plane tickets will always bypass you. With this approach, you simply have no chance of meeting them.

I consider three services to be the best search engines: Aviasales, Buruki and Skyscanner. Using them when searching for cheap air tickets is about 80-90% of success. However, to get the full benefit from search engines, you need to use their capabilities 100% - and not everyone does this: even travelers who are well familiar with them are not aware of a number of excellent functions of these aggregators.

Advice: Before you buy plane tickets, check the price in all three search engines for greater reliability - this will increase your chances of finding the cheapest plane tickets. Sometimes the price difference can be about 2-7% of the ticket price.

Well, now about the useful functions of search engines for cheap air tickets that you need to know and put into practice.

(photo © jrpboo / flickr.com)

A. Advanced (non-specific) search for cheap flights

The Skyscanner search engine has this amazing feature - it will solve the problem of anyone who does not have specific plans for where and when to fly, but wants to do it as cheaply as possible. Just right during a crisis! So, in the ticket search form you can enter not only specific cities/airports and clearly fixed dates, but also undefined options.

1. In the column "Where" you can indicate the entire country (all its airports) - for example, write “Russia”, “Ukraine”, “Belarus” or, say, “Zimbabwe”. Plus, you can check the “Add nearby airports” checkbox.
2. In the column "Where" You can enter “Everywhere” or leave the field empty, then the search system will look for the cheapest flight options to all countries of the world.
3. In the fields departure and return dates You can specify “All month” or “All year” at once.

Here's an example of how to fill out a search form on Skyscanner:

B. Subscription for reduced ticket prices

• The ability to mark specific dates or search for several months at once;
• Ability to set the duration of the planned trip;
• The presence of filters to filter out unnecessary things;
• Comparison of specific departure days with each other;
• In a number of areas, the system displays information about interesting events and holidays in a particular month.

D. Mobile application

It is very useful to have a cheap ticket finder always at hand. This is easy to implement - just install the mobile application on your smartphone. Aviasales has convenient and well-functioning applications for both Android (download) and iPhone (download). It is interesting that, according to Aviasales statistics, almost half of their users search for and buy air tickets through these mobile applications, and every 8th iPhone in Russia has this program installed.

D. Complex (compound) route

This function is available on the search engines Aviasales and Skyscanner. It allows you to create routes with three or more flight segments and “fork routes” when the city of arrival and subsequent departure are different (non-closed flights). Also, thanks to this function, you can purchase tickets with a stopover (connection longer than a day).

• Example of a simple route: Moscow - Barcelona - Moscow.
• Example of a complex route: Moscow - Barcelona, ​​Barcelona - Paris, Paris - Moscow.
• Fork example (open-jaw): 1) Moscow - Barcelona, ​​Madrid - Moscow; or 2) Moscow - Barcelona, ​​Barcelona - St. Petersburg.

Read about the benefits of “forks” and complex routes and how they allow you to buy air tickets cheaper than on simple flights, in the section on advanced skills, in paragraph.

E. Cheap flights for the holidays

Selections of plane tickets at the best prices can be seen on the Buruki service on the page "Fly away for the holidays!".

Select your city and the holidays for which you are looking for tickets (for example, May or New Year), and the system will give you a list of the best offers for these dates. You can sort the results by directions (Europe, Asia, America, etc.). A very convenient thing for planning a vacation!

G. Map of low prices for air tickets

Another interesting and original feature. Allows you to search for cheap tickets using flexible parameters:

• Travel dates: exact, tickets for weekends or holidays, search by month or season.
• Ability to search only for direct flights.
• Filter by visa: visa-free countries, Schengen, other visa countries.
• Range of length of stay.
• The budget that you are willing to allocate for the purchase of air tickets.

Try using the Aviasales low price map or Skyscanner.

2. Follow promotions on air tickets

A strong and unbearable desire to buy the cheapest air tickets can cause you to fall through the cracks and rashly subscribe to the mailing lists of all existing airlines and agencies. You shouldn’t do this - take pity on yourself and your mailbox, a wave of garbage pseudo-promotions will simply crush you and discourage you from being interested in special offers in the future.

What the airlines call "shares" And "interesting offers" they are not always - most often it is just a marketing ploy to attract attention with calls to buy air tickets as soon as possible. Sifting the wheat from the chaff in this area is not easy work, requiring a clear understanding of what ticket price is considered regular and what is promotional.

This is what we do here - only information worthy of attention appears, and everything dubious and false is eliminated. So stay tuned for our news! The easiest way to do this is by subscribing to ours - announcements of the latest news appear there instantly, and sometimes I publish some news about the availability of cheap tickets only there (when I don’t have time to write about it here on the site).

(Photo © Rennett Stowe / flickr.com)

3. Wait for the right moment

You can only buy the cheapest air tickets at certain times; for weeks on end throughout the year, the minimum prices will never hold. Therefore, always adhere to the rule - as soon as there is a chance to purchase cheap tickets, you need to take advantage of it. As soon as you read the news about a sale or find an attractive option on search engines, don’t hesitate - buy.

You also need to know the periods when plane tickets can be bought cheapest:

1. one year before the planned trip;
2. 2-3 months before departure;
3. a few days before departure.

Of course, the rule is not ironclad - it is rather a trend. Keep in mind that relying on the latter option is always risky.

4. Buy an air ticket departing from a neighboring city

If you live in St. Petersburg, check prices for flights from Moscow and Helsinki; if you live in Perm or Chelyabinsk, ask if it is possible to buy cheap plane tickets departing from Yekaterinburg, and so on. Sometimes this can save tens of thousands of rubles. For example, when you see news like ““, you don’t need to hope that a good wizard will please the residents of Perm, Tyumen and the entire Ural region with similar prices, you just need to take and book such incredibly cheap tickets while you have the chance.

Residents of Moscow should not yawn either. Yes, 80-90% of all promotions and interesting offers from airlines are relevant only for flights from the capital, but this does not mean that you need to forget about the remaining 10%. It makes sense to check if there is anything interesting for flights from Pulkovo.

(photo © sewyerown / flickr.com)

5. Low-cost airlines

You can read about what low-cost airlines are in, and specifically about low-cost carriers in Europe - in.

Using low-cost opportunities wisely means:

1. Fly from cities closest to us in Europe: Vilnius, Kaunas, Riga, Tallinn, Helsinki, Lappeenranta, Tampere. From the airports of these cities you can fly for 10-30 euros to almost any point in Europe, and also extremely cheaply - to Israel, Georgia, Morocco, the Canary and Azores Islands and more. Read more about this in the article about.
2. Don’t forget that some discount airlines also fly to Russia: for example, from Moscow you can inexpensively fly to Budapest on board Wizz Air or fly to London on EasyJet. From both of these cities you can also fly cheaply to anywhere in Europe.
3. Come up with ideas based on which destinations low-cost airlines offer especially low prices. Have you planned to go to Barcelona and suddenly found out that from there you can fly to Malta for 28 euros (1880 rubles), and from there to Milan for 10 euros (650 rubles)? So why not put together a route for an intense and very budget trip from such pieces (). It's simple and fun!
4. Refuse luggage, because most budget airlines charge for its transportation separately. Sometimes you can buy very cheap tickets (for €10, for example), but pay three times as much for luggage. Travel light - it's cheaper and easier.

(photo © cheelah / flickr.com)

6. Fly with a group

Some airlines are ready to give discounts to passengers if they fly with a group and book tickets for several people at once.

For example, the low-cost airline EasyJet usually gives a discount when tickets are booked for two or three people: the discount can be 7-10 euros for each ticket. Wizz Air has a loyalty program - Wizz Discount Club. By purchasing a membership (€30 for two, €50 for up to 5 people), you can purchase any tickets for at least €10 cheaper throughout the year (that is, the membership pays for itself immediately).

You can even fly with imaginary friends - they can also help you buy plane tickets at a good discount. More on this below, in the section on advanced skills for knocking down airfare prices. And in general, the most interesting things are ahead!

Advanced skills for buying cheap airline tickets

7. Fictional baby

It’s interesting that sometimes you can simply invent a “friend” for yourself and get free discounts on your air tickets. Our imaginary friend must be a baby (children under 2 years old usually do not have to pay for a ticket). When searching for plane tickets, if you add a baby as a passenger, a discount will be applied to your ticket - sometimes quite significant. This trick does not always work - it all depends on the agent selling the ticket, the airline and the search engine. As far as I know, the trick so far only works on Aviasales (most often for Transaero tickets).

I have already written more than once about using this cunning way to buy air tickets cheaper than the original price (the price is indicated for round-trip tickets):

• Tickets from Moscow to St. Petersburg or vice versa for 1,408 rubles. instead of 2670 ().
• To Georgia from St. Petersburg for 4904 rubles. instead of 6200 ().
• To Vilnius from Moscow for 3952 rubles. instead of 4508().

Of course, no babies will fly with you - when checking in for the flight, just come up with a good reason why the baby did not fly (he got sick, stayed with one of his relatives, etc.).

(photo © demandaj / flickr.com)

8. Tricky deceptive zigzag

Airlines love to make money on direct flights, because many are willing to overpay (sometimes a lot) for convenience, speed and the absence of tedious connections. Well, let's think of workarounds and force the airlines to sell us the cheapest tickets.

All you need to do is pretend. Pretend that we want to fly to places other than where we really want to go. Are you going to Tallinn? Don’t rush to look for air tickets for flights to this city, let’s better pretend that we need to go to Oslo. See for yourself, the best offer for tickets to the Estonian capital is 5,430 rubles on a direct flight with Estonian Air.

But do you remember that passengers have to pay more for the pleasure of flying on a direct flight? The solution to this problem is simple: knowing that Tallinn is the hub (base airport) of Estonian Air, and also that tickets for its flights from Tallinn to Oslo are usually very inexpensive, we will simply check the cost of air tickets from Moscow to Oslo. Voila, they are asking only 4045 rubles for them! The flight is carried out through Tallinn, which we need - we arrive there, pick up our luggage and forget about Oslo. Congratulations, we saved almost 30% from the cost of a ticket for a direct flight to the city we need!

How to find such cheap alternatives? To do this you need to be a little in the know:

• know which airlines fly to your desired city;
• whether its airport is their main one;
• what destinations do these airlines fly from the city you need at minimum fares (in order to correctly insert the destination city into the ticket that we will buy).

Knowing this and using logic, designing flight routes like these is very easy and fun! Even if you are not in the know, then, armed with ticket search engines, Wikipedia and Google, you can easily get the hang of this issue and find a solution.

Attention:

1. Don’t forget to check your luggage not to the final destination, but to the intermediate one (you can come up with any argument: you are carrying a gift that you want to give along the way, there is something you need in your bag, etc.).
2. If you miss any segment of the flight, remember that after this the ticket will be cancelled. Therefore, if you bought a round-trip plane ticket and missed a segment on the flight there, then you will not fly back using this ticket. For example, you have an air ticket “Moscow - Tallinn - Oslo - Tallinn - Moscow”: by refusing to fly from Tallinn to Oslo, you deprive yourself of the opportunity to fly later from Tallinn to Moscow. Therefore, for such purposes, you need to buy a ticket there separately, and a ticket back separately.

(Photo © benjaminlansky / flickr.com)

9. Complex (multipart) air flights

Sometimes you can buy significantly cheaper plane tickets if you build an extra segment into your flight route (use it whether you want to or not).

Cases from practice:

• For example, the Etihad airline has repeatedly had an interesting incident with the pricing of tickets to Asia, if the route is formed as follows: “Moscow - Asia - Yekaterinburg”. At the same time, it was not necessary to fly to Yekaterinburg on the way back - the flight was carried out through Moscow and you could get off there. The savings amounted to about 3-5 thousand rubles. Here's the news about it.
• I once wrote () about the great opportunity to fly for 29 thousand rubles to Dublin, the Seychelles, Mauritius and Paris in one trip. Just a dream for insatiable travelers for whom one or even two countries are not enough for one trip!

Such incidents happen precisely in multi-part routes on joint flights of several airlines at once due to the fact that the price calculation system is imperfect and in some atypical cases fails.

Bonus of this option: the opportunity to visit not one, but two or three cities in one trip and save money at the same time.

Unfortunately, finding such loopholes and glitches is not so easy. If such opportunities appear, I write news about them - stay tuned. However, you can try your luck yourself, try to build difficult route (you can do this on Aviasales and Skyscanner) by including several flights to different cities in one form.

10. Wrong tariffs

As mentioned above, any price calculation system is imperfect and sometimes fails - this happens most often with complex flight routes, but sometimes it also happens with simple ones.

The rule here is simple: If you find incredibly cheap air tickets (for example), don’t think for a second - take it. No need to call your brother/matchmaker/wife/friend - if everything works out, they will approve the initiative. You should not (under any circumstances) call the airline or agency asking why the price is so low. An erroneous tariff is erroneous because no one knows about it, and as soon as the fact of its existence is noticed by airline ticket sellers, they will immediately close the shop.

Yes, you need to be prepared for the fact that a ticket that was mistakenly sold at an excessively low price may be canceled by the airline. In this case, you will simply get your money back - every penny. So this is the worst case scenario - what we had was what we were left with. But another outcome is also possible - the tickets will be confirmed, your trip will take place, and you will save a hell of a lot.

(photo © caribb / flickr.com)

11. Free air tickets from Tinkoff Bank

Three years ago I finally decided to order the famous All Airlines Tinkoff Bank credit card, which sharpened especially for travelers. The card and bank exceeded all my expectations!

Current Tinkoff Bank promotions: 6,000 miles as a gift to all new clients or a year of free service.

(photo © mrmorodo / flickr.com)

+Additionally: not with a single ticket...

Yes, you won’t be satisfied with cheap air tickets alone - having bought them, you also need to resolve the issue of hotels, car rental, etc. Here I will list the most convenient and reliable services that solve these additional problems.

Travel accommodation

Find hotels at the best price for your travel on the popular Roomguru service - it compares prices of a variety of booking systems and finds the best one. Read more about how to save when booking hotels.

Sometimes it’s cheaper and more comfortable to rent a house or apartment - many interesting options from hosts can be found on the popular Airbnb service. By the way, this is definitely beneficial if you are traveling with your family or company.

Cheap tours

Car rent

You can rent a car using the Skyscanner Car Hire online services (car rental worldwide).

Sign up for airline alerts

Don't forget to monitor carriers' websites. Sales are usually held in February - March and October - November. During such periods the servers may be down. But a little patience, and a cheap ticket is in your pocket. And some airlines offer to send messages if the price drops. Agree so you can buy the right ticket.

Subscribe to Telegram channels

To search for profitable offers, use Telegram channels. Information about discounts comes in the form of a personal notification. It’s better to subscribe to several at once and monitor them, comparing prices. Here are three useful channels with cheap air tickets: Samokatus, Travelradar and PassOnBoard.

And of course, use cheap air ticket aggregators such as Aviasales, Skyscanner, Momondo, OneTwoTrip. They are not tied to a specific airline, but compare prices from different sites and give you the best option. These search engines also have convenient price charts and calendars. With their help, you can move the date of your trip and save a significant amount.

Most of these search engines have mobile applications.

2. Clear cookies and cache

If you have already looked for cheap air tickets, the aggregator or airline website has remembered both the country of departure and the approximate cost of travel. As a result, you may see the old price even if the tickets have become cheaper. In addition, the site will rush you and assure you that there are almost no seats left on the plane. Even if this is not true at all.

5. Buy tickets in advance

It is more profitable to buy tickets in advance. Airlines typically open sales 330 days in advance. But, as practice shows, the most optimal booking time is 50–60 days before departure.

The fact is that when sales start, the program is guided by last year’s prices, and then demand determines the price and, as a rule, it decreases. A couple of months before departure there are not many bookings. And the more empty seats on the plane, the lower the price.

When buying a ticket, you should also take into account the time of day. Most people buy tickets in the middle of the day. So book your flight late at night or early in the morning. There are not many visitors to aggregators, demand is falling, prices are starting to creep down.

6. Keep documents handy

Carry your passport information with you at all times. It is not necessary to carry a passport with you. It is enough to take a photo of the necessary pages or write down the data in notes. Special offers usually come at the most inopportune times. And cheap tickets will most likely not survive until the evening. So when planning your trip, be prepared to book your tickets at a moment's notice. And, of course, don’t forget about the money on your bank card.

The ticket price directly depends on the flow of tourists. During holidays, school holidays and high season, the cost of flights usually increases. So be sure to check prices for other dates. Sometimes departures within a couple of weeks are several times cheaper.

Thus, a ticket to Asian countries departing at the end of December is almost twice as expensive as at the beginning of the month.

And don’t shy away from traveling in the off-season. Firstly, it's much cheaper. Secondly, there are no crowds of tourists or queues at museums. For example, everyone goes to Europe for the New Year holidays. It is much more profitable to fly there in early autumn.

8. Buy round-trip tickets

Buy tickets in both directions at once, don’t delay until later. Firstly, when you buy round-trip tickets you save about 20%. Secondly, remember: the closer the departure, the more expensive the ticket. For example, tickets Moscow - Paris and back cost 14,000 rubles, and if you take them separately, you will have to overpay more than 2,000 rubles.

9. Don't limit yourself to the capital

If you want to get to France, for example, you don’t have to fly directly to Paris. Look at tickets to neighboring cities: sometimes you can get there much cheaper than to the capital.

Then you can travel by trains, trains, buses or planes. Just remember: when abroad, it is better to book tickets for intercity trains and buses in advance, at least a couple of weeks in advance. It will be cheaper this way. In Europe, this can be done online, through the carriers' websites.