The Best Time To Buy Airline Tickets To Save More in 2016


It is always good to think ahead when booking airline tickets for that vacation trip. Most travelers know that should you book at the last minute, it is going to cost you more. The following gives a good idea of when you should book your flights, in order to get the best deal possible.

Shortly before the New Year, travel companies like Expedia, Travelex and Tripadvisor were running surveys and analyzing the habits of travelers in general. They wanted to know where people are planning to travel to as well as how much they are willing to spend, while travelers themselves were searching for the best offers available.

Expedia published the results of their investigations in “Air travel outlook for 2016” and suggest from their findings that to get the best deal on an economy airline ticket for flights within the U.S.A., consumers should book around 57 days in advance. While this is obviously not possible for emergency travel, and often difficult for business travel, when planning a vacation this can really save money and offer the best deal on flights.

However, when planning a trip from North America to Europe, Expedia recommends buying the airline tickets 176 days in advance, which then offers consumers around an 11 percent saving. If you are planning on traveling to the Caribbean from North America, buying the tickets 77 days in advance will give the best deal.

To get to these findings, Expedia analyzed some 8 billion searches on all their websites, along with Airlines Reporting Corporation’s information on over 10 billion passenger flights, as well as other travel industry data sources.

The survey by Travelex showed, among other things, that almost two-thirds of Americans won’t be heading abroad on vacation this year and those who do plan to vacation will most likely do so at home. The full results of their findings can be viewed here.

For those traveling from the U.K., the travel website Luxportation suggests that Brits can make a significant saving by booking their airline tickets at least 53 days prior to their date of departure.

Quoting global statistics published by the travel company Momondo, data relating to 12.6 billion worldwide airfares were compared and it was found that by booking that far in advance, consumers could save around 26 percent on their flights. The study confirmed that those who booked at the last minute definitely paid a lot more for their airline tickets.

Momondo’s study also showed that the day of the week can make a difference when calculating the price of travel, with Saturday proving to be the most expensive for booking a flight and Tuesday being the cheapest. Reportedly buying airline tickets on Sunday turns out to be cheaper than booking your flights on Friday.

When looking at global spending on travel, according to Tripadvisor’s research, many travelers are searching an average of 48 times on eight different web sites before making their final booking.

They also calculated that one in three travelers are planning to spend more on travel during 2016 than they did in 2015. Their 2016 TripBarometer, run during October 2015, shows the results of 44,782 survey responses from both travelers and hoteliers worldwide.

According to their survey, 49 percent of participants planned to increase their travel budgets because they feel they or their family deserve it. Quoting the research company Ipsos, their article states that baby boomers are likely to budget on average $8,736 for travel, which is triple the amount millennials are planning to spend, in the region of $2,915.

An interesting aspect showed that of all worldwide travelers, reportedly Australians spend the most on travel at an average of $10,800, with the Swiss coming second and Americans in third place with an average travel budget of $8,400.

Judging from the results of all the surveys, it definitely sounds like a plan to book well ahead to get the very best deals for airline tickets when traveling in 2016, no matter where you live in the world.

[Photo via Flickr by Nick Harris/CC BY-ND 2.0]

Share this article: The Best Time To Buy Airline Tickets To Save More in 2016
More from Inquisitr