Round The World Tickets
Booking some travel segments well in advance can be worthwhile
A huge part of the appeal of “long-term travel” is that as long as you keep your daily expenses low you can have nearly unlimited flexibility with your schedule. If you want to fly from, say, Madrid to Athens, and you discover that the cheapest flight leaves at midnight 3 days from now, you can just stay at the Madrid hostel until then to take advantage of the low fare. But increasingly there are a few situations where locking in a ticket well in advance can more than make up for the freedom you’ll miss out on. In some of these cases it’s worth it just on the chance that you’ll use the cheap ticket, even if you might end up not using it at all and eating the cost.
When buying tickets well ahead is worthwhile
The most common situation where it makes sense to buy air tickets way in advance is when there are ultra-competitive budget airlines working a particular route. This is most common in Europe, and to a lesser degree in the United States and Australia, but “budget airlines” are popping up all around the globe lately (and several of them have also gone under not long after), so it is worth checking the situation before you are ready to book.
For example, I’m about to leave on a 5-week European vacation and research trip, and it would have been fantastic if I could have flown over and made the rest up as I went, but when I started doing research I found that this method would have cost me a fortune. Instead, I discovered one of those bizarre Ryanair sales so I booked a flight from Edinburgh to Dublin for the morning after I had planned on going, and instead of it costing around €79 one way, it ended up costing €9 including tax and booking fee. I figure even if there is only a 50-50 chance I use the ticket, it’s still a worthwhile gamble.
Similarly when I was booking a train journey from London to Edinburgh I found that the walk-up train fare is over £100 (which is outrageous) but because I booked a month early I got a fare for £14 including everything. Again, even if I end up not using this ticket, it was so cheap that it was worth buying early anyway.
The market is changing so look ahead
In 2009 there is no telling who will be flying where and for how much, so it’s important to at least stay on top of the situation to the degree you are able. If you know you intend to fly from Bali to Perth a few months from now it’s a good idea to check the situation on kayak.com or on whichbudget.com, so see who is flying between those two and how much fares are running. Since Kayak doesn’t show every airline it’s wise to check whichbudget to make sure you are seeing them all. You might find that you can book a flight extremely cheaply well in advance, and saving a couple hundred dollars might be worth it in the long run.
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