International Air Travel Tips - Save Some Cash When Booking

Here are some international air travel tips that can save you a wad of cash on your flight to Japan. Considering that the flight may be one of the biggest expenses you'll take on if your school isn't paying for it. (Few do here's our FAQ on that.). Here are some ways around paying out more than you need to.

International Air Travel Tips - The Way You Book Your Flight Really Matters

Some keys to saving money on your trip  to Japan is the way you book the flight. There are some pretty simple ways to save yourself some cash (that is unless you're lucky enough to have your employer buy the ticket for you.)

People don't like to catch late or inconvenient flights out of the country. So the carriers have more seats available and so they drop fairs to fill those seats. Bang. You just saved yourself a bunch of cash right there, especially considering that the flights many take to teach in Japan are international flights so they are high price tickets.

This same rule carries further. People want convenience. Direct flights are convenient. Therefore direct flights cost more. If you are willing to endure the layover and can stand the boredom of the duty free shop for an hour or two you can save yourself more money.

Air Travel Search Tips

When you do your search, it's a good idea to search for the whole month and not just a specific day - this assumes of course that you are allowed the luxury of choosing the day. If you are, you can identify the cheapest day of the entire month instead of locking yourself into 1 day by searching for just that day and losing the luxury of allowing the market supply and demand dictate the cheapest price.



Skyscanner is one of my favorites for a general search. This will give you a good idea of what to expect. After checking rates via Skyscanner it's a good idea to go directly to the airline to double check the rates and book the flight.

International Air Travel Tips & Predictability

Airline ticket prices aren't  a random thing. For example you know if you have a family emergency and have to fly out in 2 days that you'll pay through the nose. But beyond this obvious and known factor, there is overall a known travel pattern. This means it is to some degree predictable. Google knows it and so does every program out there that does nothing but crush numbers. Just like Google crushes numbers and develops algorithms in search technology to give you better search results, Google Flights does the same thing with air travel booking patterns. With fair (note: we said fair - not perfect) they can predict when the cheapest times will be.

Unlike other booking agents like Travelocity or Expedia who sell tickets, these guys don't. They just direct you to the seller according to the parameters you give them. So a great international air travel tip is to leverage the power of Google Flights to find you the best agent to actually book your ticket. (Hey guys, they didn't get control of 70% of total search volume  on the internet by mistake or because they can't crush data to maximize results right?) So it's a super duper idea to get familiar with their user friendly dashboard to make it easy to find the cheapest international flights out there. 

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