You want to book cheap airfares online. You want the best airfare deals. You're asking, "Where do I go to get the best deals? Is there a single web site that always has the cheapest airfare?"

Unfortunately, the answer is no. There are just too many variables involved to allow one site or one booking engine to always have the lowest priced tickets. The price of airline tickets on any particular site is affected by the air carriers, the booking date, the time of day, the departure and arrival airports, the availability of connecting flights, the time of year, and so on.

BOOK CHEAP AIRFARES ONLINE

So what should you do to find cheap online airfares? Well, even if you do nothing else, you should always check prices on at least three travel reservation web sites, such as those found in our Travel Reservation Center, before making your final purchase. Doing so will make sure that you get a good price on a ticket, if not the cheapest price.

"But what about Kayak.com?" I hear you saying. "That site searches a whole bunch of other web sites at once, so do I still have to check prices on at least two other sites besides Kayak?" Well, yes. Yes you do. Kayak searches a lot of sites, but certainly not all of them. It does not show you all the special airfares you might be able to get from other sites such as Southwest.com, or the consolidator fares from sites such as EconomyTravel.com. Plus, it doesn't show you special combo deals the other sites might have, where you might be able to save more if you book a rental car and airline ticket together for example. So Kayak is a good starting point, but it shouldn't be the only point.

So, beyond checking prices with at least three web sites, what else can you do to book cheap airfares online? You can:

• Check airline ticket prices on late Wednesday night and late Thursday night. Those are the days on which the airlines release their weekend specials. There is some disagreement as to which of these two days is actually the better day to check prices, so why not check prices on both days?
• If you have a flexible travel schedule, change your travel days and times to see if you can come up with a cheaper ticket price. Also, try and travel on a Tuesday or Wednesday.
• If you don't have a flexible travel schedule, try booking your ticket about a month in advance.

And that's it. Sure, there are other steps you can take to find cheap flights, but if your time is limited and you can only do the few things we've told you about here, you should be able to get a very good price on an airline ticket.

So find a cheap airfare now. Visit our Travel Reservations Center.

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