Let’s face it, finding the lowest cost flight, whether you’re traveling to Orlando, Florida or Orlando, Oklahoma, is challenging. The dizzying array of information flowing at you about “finding the lowest fare” can be completely confusing and contradictory. Flights are about the most commoditized “expensive” product in existence. Last year, almost 3 billion seats were filled on 37.5 million flights around the world. To put this into context, the world has about 7 billion people, so if everyone flew once, then just under half the population of the planet was in the air last year! Of course that’s not really the case. Most folks in third world countries will go their entire lives without boarding a plane. This leaves those of us in the Westernized world to utilize the services of the airline. The 80/20 rule applies here: 80% of the people flew 20% of the flights (people like us, going to Disney) and 20% of the people flew 80% of the flights (typically professionals selling something to someone somewhere). We digress, back to the issue at hand.
Let’s start with a simple question, WHEN should you book your flights to Orlando?
Once you know your vacation schedule, then the answer is simple: Assuming it’s more than two weeks away – book as soon as possible, but always on a Tuesday afternoon around 3:00pm EST. “That’s very specific, why is that” you ask??? It’s really quite simple. Airlines offer new promotions every week, and these start on a Monday; however, they only promote a limited number of seats. American Airlines might discount a round trip ticket to Orlando to $199, but only offer a total of 250 seats on all flights starting say, two weeks from that day up until they’re gone (usually mid-week of the same week). Other airlines match later the same day, usually by late Monday afternoon or early Tuesday. By Tuesday afternoon you should have a lot of choice and the prices will have been bid down a few times along the way.
Key Criteria
Then it comes down to price and selection (these two criteria typically fight it out for the number one and two spots with most consumers) followed by the airline (almost always a distant number three). There are many services that claim to offer the lowest price. Priceline.com for example lets you name your price; however, if you’re too low then you’re locked out of that route on Priceline for a period of time, negating the benefit described above of booking early. If you’re too high, then you’ve just overpaid for your ticket with the excess going to Priceline.com We don’t like either option very much! So it really comes down to booking your airfare through one of the four big discount sites: Hotwire, Expedia, CheapTickets, and Orbitz. For those who don’t know, Cheap Tickets and Orbitz are the same company. So we’d expect to see the same price on both, and we generally did during our price testing described below. So what did we find?? We tested dozens of combinations but the two that matter for most people are a Primetime Departure (i.e. Friday or Saturday) or a Non-Primetime Departure, (i.e. maximum money saving departure). Primetime results are displayed below in Test #1 – a Friday Departure and a Friday return. Non-Primetime results are shown below in Test #2 – a Wednesday departure and Wednesday return.
Test 1 (Primetime Departure): Friday Out, Friday Return (one stop)
Travel Dates: 1 month from today (Departs July 11, 2014)
Departure City:
New York:
(Hotwire), $310
(Expedia), $310
(Cheap Tickets),$ 310
(Orbitz), $310
Chicago:
(Hotwire), $247
(Expedia), $247
(Cheap Tickets), $247
(Orbitz), $247
Los Angeles:
(Hotwire), $437.50
(Expedia), $437.48 (WINNER)
(Cheap Tickets), $437.50
(Orbitz), $437.50
Test 2 (Non-Primetime Departure): Wednesday Out, Wednesday Return (one stop)
Travel Dates: 1 month from next Wednesday (Departs July 18, 2014)
Departure City:
New York:
(Hotwire), $260 (WINNER)
(Expedia), $260 (WINNER)
(Cheap Tickets), $263.50
(Orbitz), $263.50
Chicago:
(Hotwire), $208.00
(Expedia), $208.00
(Cheap Tickets), $208.00
(Orbitz), $208.00
Los Angeles:
(Hotwire), $417.00 (WINNER)
(Expedia), $417.00 (WINNER)
(Cheap Tickets), $417.00 (WINNER)
(Orbitz), $419.00
And the Winner Is . . .
If Flying out on a Friday
Expedia was slightly less expensive (literally 2 cents) but all four discount sites were roughly the same and all about 10-15% less than booking directly from the airline or a full service travel agent.
If Flying out Mid-week
The clear winners were: Hotwire #1 and Expedia
(a very close) #2.
Happy Travels!
