Cheap Air Ticket Booking Tips from Frequent Travelers

Don't leave your home without these useful tips that is guaranteed to make your trip more fun and less stressful. Here's the low down on how to go about getting the cheapest air fare, almost free hotel stays and beating jet lag.

Keep a close watch on airline experts: - Sites like Flyertalk are choking full of frequent travelers who can offer invaluable tips. Apart from this, you can use the opportunity to hunt for loyalty programs, flash deals and offers on travel gadgets.

Time your bookings: - Most online travel portals have a fare calendar which gives you the ticket fare to your destination for a year. This can be especially useful when you are booking a vacation as it allows you to scan through the calendar and make your booking during cheap air ticket dates/season. The site thesuitest.com will give you a six month overview of the room prices for a hotel, thereby letting you book a hotel at its lowest price season.

Ticket re-booking: - Sign up for a for service like Tingo.com for hotels and refund me for flight tickets. These sites automatically rebook your hotels/flights if it notices a price drop. Also try to make your online hotel booking coupled with a flight ticket. This might help you get the cheapest flight ticket or even a free hotel stay.

Evade Jetlag: -  The trick to beating jet-lag is to follow a specific schedule during your travels. The site stopjetlag.com gives you an hour by house schedule regarding rest, meal time and sunlight exposure. Invest in a baggage tracker like Trakdot which uses a GSM chip to help you track your baggage's location via SMS, site, app or email.

Follow the crowd: - This is especially valid for finding the local eateries. I ended up gorging on one of the best shu mai dumpling place in Hong Kong by simply walking into a restaurant with the most number of locals.

Find a better seat: - Always check for new seat 24 hrs prior to departure, this is when airliners start upgrading their elite fliers thereby opening up more seats for you to choose from. Check for premium economy, though they don't match business class comfort, the extra leg room is worth the extra money. You can also check out SeatGuru.com to compare flights in terms of legroom, Wi-Fi connectivity and in-flight entertainment. Also try to book on a Wednesday to ensure you get cheap air tickets. 

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How Social Media is Helping in Better Holiday Planning

Travelers are rapidly using social media as a tool to enhance their travel through multitude of ways – for interacting with locals, sharing photos, price comparison, finding less explored places and crowd sourcing popular spots to visits. Regardless of your choice to stay in a budget hotel in India or a plush island resort in the Mauritius, social media is your friend.  The following are some of the ways in you which you can tap into social media channels for a better informed and enjoyable holiday.

Flight fare watchers: - Air fare prices bear certain semblance to a magician's prop - now you see them now you don't. The best way to ensure that you don't miss out on flash deals and discount fares is to follow price watcher sites like Kayak on Twitter and Facebook. This can be especially useful to plan holiday packages in India, since you will be booking multiple online flights.

Hotels: - After deciding your stay date, drop a note on Facebook on multiple hotel pages enquiring about a discount - you are unlikely to return empty handed. Another option is to search for the twitter with a combination of your destination and terms like hotel, promo code, promo, discount, deals etc. Most heritage resorts in India have a Social Media presence which makes this much easier.

Pinterest: - Once you have used Facebook to crowdsource the cafes you want to visit, restaurants you want to eat at, the museums you want to check out, search for them on Pinterest. Create your own digital pinup board with images of all the places you want to visit.

Airports & Carriers: - Following an airline carrier on Twitter has dual benefits – you get updated on discount fares and you get instant notification in case of a flight delay or any disruption. Also, ensure that you follow your inbound and outbound airports, eg:- @delhi_airport.

Travel Bloggers: - Do a bit of Googling to figure out the popular travel bloggers in the city you are visiting and follow them on Twitter. As long as you don't bug them too much and is polite, they will gladly share juicy bits of information that you won't find in any guide.

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