Many Britons are thinking about summer holidays, but travel experts warn it's time to look further. There is currently a short but powerful booking window going on, especially for those who are paying attention to Christmas trips. According to Fred Harrington, personal finance expert at Digital Savings Platform SavemyCent, “By July, demand for summer holidays will peak and airlines will begin adjusting their fall booking patterns algorithms.”
This means that prices for flights in December can soon begin to rise annually. The good news is that if you know the right way, you can lock down lower fares.
Harrington has been analyzing fares for years, and the techniques he recommends are surprisingly simple.
He calls it “flight search stacking” and is designed to exploit the habits of the way airlines and travel platforms process search data.
“We run parallel searches on multiple platforms, including Google Flight, Skyscanner, and airline websites, but are always in secret or private browsing mode,” explained Fred.
“Airlines can track searches and actually raise prices if they think they're desperate for a particular route.”
This technique also involves comparing flexible dates with alternative routes to reveal what Fred calls “ghostphales.”
“Airlines will release the cheapest fare batches mid-week,” Fred points out, emphasizing strategic timing is also important.
“Weekend bookings are often inducing a higher pricing tier, as they envision leisure travelers with flexible budgets.”
With Christmas still a few months away, this little-known trick could give a savvy traveler the edge they need.
As Fred puts it, “People are now booking beach holidays on August, but are completely ignoring December flights at the cheapest point.”
