HOUSTON — When it comes to headlines about price hikes, what you read is not always what you get.
Travel expert Scott Keyes says average airfares are up, but no one pays that price anyway.
“You can’t book average airfare,” Keyes said. “You can only book available airfare. Anybody that is booking a flight needs to remember to not resign yourself to overpaying for flight because you’ve heard that average fares are going up.”
Keyes and his team at travel subscription website Scott’s Cheap Flights found some round trip deals from Houston.
- Costa Rica $265
- Peru $383
- Paris/Amsterdam (Summer 2022) under $600
Keyes stresses that the trick to finding good deals is to let price navigate your trip. Instead of finding where and when you want to go on vacation, find a cheap flight first and plan it the other way around.
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“If it’s really a priority for you to get a good deal, take that same three-step process and flip it on its head,” Keyes suggested. “By setting price as the top priority rather than the last priority, that’s how you end up getting cheap flights. That’s how you end up booking three or four vacations for the same price that you used to pay for one.”
Keyes also says the best days to fly are still Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Saturdays.
He also suggests following the “Goldilocks Window” if you can. Book a domestic flight one to three months in advance. If you’re traveling internationally, buy tickets two to eight months ahead of time.