Nothing makes the traveling experience better than getting your airplane tickets for a low price. The boom in the economy has now made travelling accessible for many more people, but unfortunately airfare can still be one of the largest costs when planning a vacation.

However, adding these tactics into your game plan can give you a slight advantage. Here are a few things to keep in mind when booking your next flight.

The Best Time to Buy

Many believe that buying the ticket many months in advance is the best way to secure the cheapest price – unfortunately that is only half true. Truth is, unless you are booking for holiday dates (4^th of July, Christmas, etc.), you should aim to book the flight about 45 days in advance. 

What about the specific time of the day? CBS’ travel editor Peter Greenberg recommends, “Wednesday at 1 a.m., just one hour after Tuesday midnight,” – depending on the time zone airline’s booking center is based out of. He says, “Most low airfares seem to appear between Sunday night and Monday night. And then, when people book those fares, they have 24 hours in which to purchase them. At midnight Tuesday, all the discount fares that weren’t purchased come flooding back into the airline’s computer systems. And that’s when you strike.”

The key to the tip above however is to make the calls to the booking center in person as these changes will not be seen online. But if you are hesitant to make a call, there are other ways to see lower prices.

Delete Your Cookies 

Once you’ve made your search for your desired flight, you will be bombarded with ads from all airliners – however the price will most likely remain the same. For this purpose, it is advised that you delete the cookies on your computer and/or use a completely different computer (preferably from a different location altogether) when you re-check for lower prices.

Time of the Month

The timing of the month should also be taken into consideration. Most people are paid on the 1^st and the 15^th – so automatically any days around those dates should be avoided. The 7^th and the 23^rd make great days to purchase a ticket.  

Be Flexible 

You cannot get good deals on flights if you confine yourself to date limitations. The most common time is to fly during or on a weekend – unfortunately, since most people demand this, finding cheap tickets during this time is almost impossible. In fact, you would be lucky to even pay an average rate to fly during the weekend. Even Mondays aren’t the greatest days because many people fly for business purposes during this time. So keep Tuesday-Thursday open.

Best Websites That Are Your Friend

In today’s day and age, there are multiple booking sites that promise low rates – truth be told, these sites are a fairly decent alternative and they certainly take away the hassle and agony from the experience that is booking a flight. Compared to the commercial sites like Kayak and Expedia, Airfarewatchdog.com tends to be a better option. It has some of the best reviews and is known to offer the most optimal deals. Yapta.com is another site to look into; they send their customers alerts for when the prices of the tickets drop and arrange for refunds.