Buying a ticket for International travel by Elizabeth Smith, eHow Writer

When you're purchasing plane tickets, timing can be everything. Ticket prices change from day to day, and even from seat to seat. When purchasing plane tickets, you can get the best price by heeding a few simple tips and following some basic strategies:


Time Frame

1. In general, the best time to start searching for a plane ticket is the moment you have an idea of your itinerary and travel dates. The sooner you start assessing the general trend of ticket prices, the more able you will be to find a good deal. As a travel date approaches, plane tickets tend to get more expensive due to increased demand.

Geography

2. When buying a plane ticket, consider the general trend of prices. Normally, ticket prices rise during the high tourist season. A ticket to Rome in January, for example, will generally be far cheaper than a ticket to Rome in July. When planning your trip, consider buying plane tickets for travel in the tourist off-season.

Identification

3. Take advantage of an airline search engine's alert features. Both Kayak and Orbitz allow you to sign up for email alerts when prices for your specified itinerary drop below a target price. When you get such an email, act immediately to purchase your plane ticket, as the price may rise soon thereafter. For some itineraries, ticket prices can vary by hundreds of dollars within the same month or week.

Features

4. Use websites like FareCompare to get an idea of the pricing history of you chosen route. FareCompare will give you the best prices between a selected pair of cities for each month of the year, and will allow you to see prices from the past year. Once you have selected a month to travel, the site will display prices for each day of that month, so you can choose by price or schedule.

Theories/Speculation

5. It is widely felt that the best time of the week to buy plane tickets is from midnight to 1 or 2 a.m on Wednesday. Apparently, this is the time when airline reservation systems are updated and new fares come into effect. As only a certain number of seats are generally available at a low fare, they tend to sell out quickly. While there is no hard evidence to support this belief, it can't hurt to try; also try your searches at different times of the day and night to increase your changes of getting a bargain.