You need time to locate inexpensive airfare

There are several places to find inexpensive airfare. The best, of course, is the airline counter minutes before the flight is due to take off. The airline will be willing to sell its empty seats at a bargain rate. However, this is not a good way to get a bargain.

The second is your travel agent. However, your travel agent should be one whom you can trust. Most travel agents will offload those airline tickets where they get the highest commission. So, you must be sure that your travel agent is not going to sell you a ticket that is just a little less than the airline rate.

The best place to get an inexpensive fare is the net, provided you are patient and do not mind spending some time locating the best fare. Your first destination should be the airline sites. Very often, they run discounts or offer special fares to travellers buying tickets online.

Next should be large travel sites like Expedia or Travelocity. Some of these large travel sites buy tickets in bulk and then offer them at reduced rates to travellers. You will find that sometimes the fares offered by these big travel sites differ dramatically on international flights. This is because of their individual arrangements with international carriers.

After this, you should visit the search engines that specialize in travel like Sidestep.com. On these sites, you will get to see the fares offered by both airlines as well as smaller travel sites. You can select the one that is the least expensive.

You can even subscribe to low fare alerts. These e-mails inform you of any cuts in ticket rates. Another place to get inexpensive fares is the flexible fare sections of travel sites or the package deals sections. Both these options can help you save several hundred dollars.