Planning your travel to see that you get the cheapest tickets is a must for any person. The high cost of air travel has made this a necessity for any person travelling on holiday or business. One can always opt for cheaper travel by bus or rail, but these trips do take that much more time. Time is a much more highly priced resource and people do not mind spending that extra bit on airline travel if it can save them a few hours.

The price of airline tickets is constantly varying because of the huge competition among airlines. They are always in contention with each other to see that their aircraft fly with full loads. This they can only do if they ensure that every seat is filled. So the fare wars are started by the smaller airlines trying to get their share of the flying customers by reducing their prices. The weekends are generally very good for the airline industry and this is the time that airlines try to increase prices to take advantage of the rush for their tickets. So a Friday is when the fare will be the highest and the wrong time to book your ticket.

Once the fare goes up all airlines tend to equalize their fares to compete with their business rivals. These high fares tend to remain over the weekend. But once this period is over, the cutthroat competition forces the rates down. So by the coming Monday or Tuesday the fares have gone to their lower levels. By Wednesday they would have reached their lowest levels and this is the right time to pay for that airline ticket. So do all your airline ticket buying on a Wednesday and you could be able to save quite a bit on airfare.

Airline companies generally make the changes in their computer systems at midnight. These changes exhibit new fares, and the fares entered on Tuesday midnight could be the lowest for the week. So do you’re booking for those airline tickets at about an hour past midnight on Tuesday and you will find that you have effected a real saving in the cost of the tickets.

One more thing to remember, that airlines are not bound to sell all their tickets at the lowest fare that they announce. By convention, once they have announced the new prices, it is expected that they sell at least ten percent of their tickets at that price. This means that the balance 90 percent can be charged higher prices. So if you have not taken advantage of the lower fare announced on the midnight of Tuesday, it is likely that you would be paying a higher fare. And if you make the mistake of waiting till the weekend it is almost certain that you would be paying the airline the full fare ticket value.

Cheapest seats are generally available about four months in advance of the day of travel. This is not a rule and you would just have to be on your toes and constantly look at the revised fares to take advantage of these concessions. You would however have to make all your travel plans well in advance if you want to take the advantage of cheaper tickets.