If you’ll be taking vacation time in the coming year and plan on flying, here are some useful tips for buying a cheap ticket.

When to buy

If you’re going to buy tickets for domestic (国内的) flights, check prices on Tuesday afternoons. This is an old tip but still useful because most U. S. carriers continue to release sales on Tuesday morning, and competitors quickly drop their fares to match the better deals.

When to fly

Weekdays continue to be generally cheaper times to fly than weekends for most flights. In the U. S. , the cheapest days are typically Tuesday, Wednesday and Saturday. A good itinerary (旅行计划) for the expensive U. S. spring break travel period is scheduled from Tuesday to Saturday; it will save you money (in most cases).

Where to fly

We continue to see good deals to Boston and Denver and more and more nice prices to Chicago, Seattle and Washington, D. C. . As for Europe, there have been surprising deals throughout the fall and those will continue into the winter.

Direct flights vs connecting flights

Compare the price of direct flights with that of connecting flights. Sometimes adding a stop to your route will save you money, and it might be enough to endure the extra long flying day. An example: San Francisco to Raleigh: $553 for a direct flight, $362 with one stop.

You'd better think twice about the direct flight for San Francisco to Raleigh.

Compare, compare, compare

Stifle the impulse to go to your favorite airline site to purchase tickets without doing any comparison. Example: Let’s say you want to fly from New York to London and figure your favorite U. S. legacy carrier will get you there for the best price—$554 for a round trip.

However, the comparison site also shows a cheaper flight from the same legacy carrier ($521). See what you're missing when you fail to do comparison?

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