Is It Best To Book Flights On Tuesday?
Are Flights Cheaper If You Book on Tuesday?
When asking questions about booking flights, one question usually stands out: What is the most suitable day of the week to book flights? There is a saying that if one wants to get the best flight tickets, then he or she should try to book on a Tuesday. However, is this claim, in fact, true? In this article, we detail our analysis of the flight data and consultation with the FlightStats experts to determine if there is a discount on Tuesday or if it is just a myth.
What the Data Shows
It may not come as a surprise to many, but there are flight booking websites and travel companies that claim that the cheapest airfare is on Tuesday. For instance, Hopper, which is an airfare prediction app, leveraged big data analysis to gather historical flight pricing data on billions of routes and dates. According to their data, the average savings for a domestic flight within the United States was five percent on Tuesday in comparison to Sunday. The Tuesday discount was even higher for the international connections, being 11% cheaper on average compared to Sunday.
A similar study undertaken by the travel search site Expedia also revealed that the cheapest flights found by day of the week of booking were the Monday and the Tuesday, regardless of whether the ticket was for a domestic or international flight. However, the variation of average ticket prices based on the day of the week sometimes varied only by a mere five dollars or less; hence, it was not much of a variation. However, their research indicates that one could shave some dollars off one's airfare if willing to have it on Wednesday rather than Sunday.
Why They are Cheaper: Tuesday Fares
The data does present a scenario where flights booked on Tuesday are slightly cheaper compared to the other days of the week; however, airlines use other ways to make their prices. Pricing is dynamic and influenced by factors such as availability, consumers™ expectations, competitors, and many others.
However, travel experts have suggested several theories behind possible Tuesday travel deal savings:
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Over weekends is what most people prefer to do when they are looking for a place to go for the night. When it comes to shopping, the demand increases, thus leading to prices that are elevated. If you are booking for midweek travel, you will have to compete with a few travelers, which makes prices slightly lower.
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Most travel deals are time-sensitive, perhaps requiring them to be booked and used by the end of the Monday night. Some airlines may release their new promotional fares every Tuesday and this provides mid-week planners with an upper hand since they can access new offers.
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Some airline sales periods start on Tuesday, and promotions applicable to certain seasons afford lesser price tags to flights that leave on less popular days. When it is Tuesday and there is a sale, you can be ready to book without the inconvenience of expensive seats being taken before you.
When Tuesday Bookings can go wrong
Overall, Tuesdays may provide some degree of cost reduction in a broad sense, but it is not automatically the cheapest day of the week across the board. It is also important not to wait until Tuesday to book an airplane, as there may be some risks involved, especially if one is looking for specific types of flights.
Sorry, the result has been rounded down to the nearest whole number: International flights that are airborne less frequently are likely to experience their peak traffic on Tuesdays. For such flights, the price increases on Tuesday instead of lowering, as it is considered to be one of the most searched days of the week for flight tickets. Another study considered that the chance of getting the lowest fares for such irregular flight routes was possible only if the flight booking was made on Monday or Wednesday.
Again, it would be extremely unwise to make a booking within the last couple of weeks before a holiday or any other festive season, irrespective of the day of the week selected. If the demand for air travel is high for specific flights at certain times, then the cost of the ticket increases rather than decreases towards the end of the required flight times.
You may also notice that your options of flights may be limited if you are planning your holiday rush at the last minute or towards the last weeks before the holiday. While price hagglers wait to buy their products in the hope of a sale, smart travelers book their dates and price deals a long time in advance.
“Flexible scheduling can help passengers to save their maximum amount on flights. â€
On that note, restricting yourself to conducting flight searches or bookings only on Tuesdays is not going to drastically determine your fare prices. It doesn't matter when or if you begin tracking and comparing flight costs; the more important thing is to stay awake and flexible right up to the time you redeem the credits. While the historical precedent might show you a bigger midweek, chances are those are set less by routine and more by your responsiveness.
Ways savvy flyers can set themselves up for the best fares include:
The ability to consider a broader window of flexibility in terms of dates for traveling rather than strictly having to travel within one given week. The daily tracking of prices across preferred months provides information on fluctuations in features that affect pricing based on seasons.
Subscribe to airfare alerts using the search comparison websites or from the preferred airline providers. That is why being pingedTM when seat sales start means you can get up quickly during short promotional discounts.
Erasing web browser cookies before beginning a new search. This can be seen in the use of digital trackers that may remind sites of further interest in a route and pressure for a price raise.
When you think about the nearest hub airports, it is also necessary to consider other airports within the proximity. Opening up opportunities means you are faced with a broader variation of rates.
Booking early in the off-peak season, because many hotels follow a practice of raising the prices higher and then gradually lowering them. As you can imagine, fares during holiday weeks decrease in the opposite direction to steadily increase as you approach the peak demand.
Although Tuesday has proven to be effective for flying and the great hunt for the best deals, the dynamics and adaptability seal the deal to get the most of the travel experiences out of every possible situation. The day you book does not matter as long as you maintain interest in the process and avoid making hasty decisions until you secure the best available deal for your specific route and date. Thus, the combined strategy of checking often with the snagging of good flight deals when they are available can perhaps be the way to travel cheaply.
Instead of wishing for that one day of the week that is not as busy, adapt the booking patterns that suit the trip type. The kind of blending of effective planning, competitive prices, mechanisms of tracking the prices, and schedule availability make it possible to get quite affordable flights that are available at particular times that are convenient for your overall plan. Perhaps the concept of an ideal cyberweek should not be the point of focus for smart travelers, but rather the general picture of effective booking strategies.
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