any suggestions for booking cheaper flight tickets

[heippa]

Hi, Need to travel to India. Any suggestions for booking cheaper flights.What should be the approx time window before that I should book. Thanks.

[FinnGuyHelsinki]

Booking.com, Supersaver,... there's loads of services for booking a flight, if you need to travel on a certain date, the earlier you book the cheaper it'll be.

[Marsh04]

Skyscanner.fi

It's not always the cheapest to buy early.

One more important tip: Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays are the cheapest days to fly

[FinnGuyHelsinki]

It's not always the cheapest to buy early.

Excluding last minute sales, in which cases is it cheaper to book closer to departure?

[Querfeldein]

Also, you may want to check flights from larger european airports, rather than connections from Helsinki. For example, you might find a cheap return flight from Amsterdam to your destination, and book your own flights from Helsinki to Amsterdam. Just be aware that connections aren't guaranteed in this case (so if your flight to Amsterdam is delayed, and you miss your flight to India, you will be stuck), and that you will have to get your luggage and check in again, so leave plenty of time. I'd only do this if saving money is the most important consideration. You can use google flights to search for multiple destinations simultaneously, i.e. to find the cheapest return flight {London|Amsterdam|Frankfurt|Paris} - {Hyderabad|Mumbai|Pune}, which would otherwise take 12 individual searches for each date.

[riku2]

try ita matrix. it's incredibly powerful. you cannot book flights with it but you can check prices and find which flights, routes and airlines have the cheapest tickets.

https://matrix.itasoftware.com/

it's best to google some pages about how to use some of the more advanced features. I find even our corporate travel agent can't find the fares that itamatrix finds. Also you can tell it you want a trip somewhere for X days and it will give a calendar showing different prices depending on the departure day. You can force it to route via certain airports or certain airlines. Though it I found that helsinki - delhi was cheaper in premium economy than economy class (leaving on friday this week on BA)!!

Beware of places like skyscanner that route you to some site which appears cheapest, but you only get the cheap price with a particular kind of credit card (eg mastercard debit). any other credit card has a hefty supplement. It sent me to supersaver.fi for HEL-LHR on finnair which was cheaper than finnair website but only if you decline the insurance, choose the right credit card, decline seat allocation, decline paying for luggage (which the site said was extra but my ticket did actually include it), decline some kind of assistant service (where they just do what you can do yourself via finnair website once you have a booking reference). In the end I paid about 180e for a ticket that way and the published value of the ticket was 200e, so the site had hoped to make money from me through those extras and they actually sold me the ticket for below published price.

Just be aware that connections aren't guaranteed in this case (so if your flight to Amsterdam is delayed, and you miss your flight to India, you will be stuck), and that you will have to get your luggage and check in again, so leave plenty of time

that's not true. if the airlines have some kind of alliance then you can through check your luggage (this is called interline of baggage). eg between finnair and BA or lufthansa and SAS. This applies even if you have separate tickets. If the separate tickets are on the same airline then they will probably handle missed connections also.

Generally direct flights on finnair are more expensive than connections though another airport. Since finnair know they have a captive market in Finland and most finns will choose finnair rather than lufthansa or BA for example. Finnair now have a marketing agreement (price fixing by another name) for north american flights and japanese flights. So AY is always the same price as BA for north america and JL for japan. You might be lucky though and BA have a sale and this forces finnair to silently match the BA sale prices (eg HEL-LHR-JFK is on sale, which means HEL-JFK will be at that price whether finnair advertise it or not). Airlines also often silently match other sale prices. So lufthansa might have a business class sale to north america and totally silently BA match those fares the day after with same conditions and same validity as lufthansa.

[Querfeldein]

that's not true. if the airlines have some kind of alliance then you can through check your luggage (this is called interline of baggage). eg between finnair and BA or lufthansa and SAS. This applies even if you have separate tickets. If the separate tickets are on the same airline then they will probably handle missed connections also.

If, as I described above, you make two complete separate bookings, you are on your own if something goes wrong with your first flight. You may get the usual delay compensation for your first flight, if the airline is at fault, but you have no right to get your second flight rebooked, or to get taken to your final destination.

"My connecting flights were booked separately. If my first flight is cancelled am I entitled to a refund for my other flight(s)?
No. Bookings made separately are regarded as separate contracts and under the terms of the Regulation a refund will only be due for the cancelled flight. However if the bookings were all made with the same air carrier you may receive a refund at their discretion."

source: Commission for Aviation Regulation, http://www.flightrights.ie/common-questions.24.html

[betelgeuse]

that's not true. if the airlines have some kind of alliance then you can through check your luggage (this is called interline of baggage). eg between finnair and BA or lufthansa and SAS. This applies even if you have separate tickets. If the separate tickets are on the same airline then they will probably handle missed connections also.

If, as I described above, you make two complete separate bookings, you are on your own if something goes wrong with your first flight. You may get the usual delay compensation for your first flight, if the airline is at fault, but you have no right to get your second flight rebooked, or to get taken to your final destination.

Though often you can claim compensation for the second flight from travel insurance (since you have to buy new tickets). Exact conditions should be checked with one's own policy.