The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
How to save on airfare
The airfare for your family vacation to Orlando, Florida, cost you $500 a person. Your friend snagged tickets there during the same week for nearly half the price. What gives? It may not be pure luck, according to Rick Seaney, the founder of farecompare.com, an airline ticket comparison site.
“There are ways to save on airfare, but you have to know the tricks,” he said. Here are his top ones:
Pick travel days wisely
If you’re traveling within the U.S., flying on a Tuesday, Wednesday or Saturday will get you the lowest airfare because there are fewer fliers on these days, Seaney said.
“You can save between 10 and 40 percent per ticket, if not more, compared to a Monday, Friday and Sunday, when air traffic is heavier,” he said. (Thursday falls between the two categories.)
If you can’t depart and return on the cheapest days, you still get half the savings if you pick one for your inbound or outbound flight. For trans-Atlantic flights, Monday through Thursday are the cheapest, though the savings are only around 5 percent compared with Friday through Sunday.
Shop ahead
For domestic travel, buy your ticket three months before your departure date; for trans-Atlantic travel, buy five months beforehand. Any further in advance has no benefit, according to Seaney, because airlines have not yet included cheap seats as part of their inventory. But be sure to buy 30 days before departure because prices increase substantially thereafter. The exception to this rule is if you plan to travel over a busy holiday period. Airlines don’t offer discounts during the holidays, so buy your ticket as soon as possible.
The golden time
The airline departments that create fare sales usually do so on Monday afternoons. These sales are then distributed to travel sites and posted on the airline’s own site. Competing airlines see these sales the next morning and adjust their fares accordingly, and final sale pricing hits reservations systems at 3 p.m. Eastern time Tuesday.
Most of these sales last only for three days, so don’t procrastinate.
Buy as if going solo
Reservation systems at airlines and travel sites sell tickets at the same price to all the fliers on one reservation. It does not matter if the airline has three seats for sale in a lower price category and the fourth at a higher one. “All the travelers under the reservation will automatically get the higher price, and you won’t know that there are cheaper tickets available,” Seaney said.
To find out for sure, he advised shopping for one flier at a time to see if there is a price difference compared to buying multiple tickets together. If there is, make separate purchases to get as many lower-cost tickets as possible.
Air Koryo ranks world’s worst again
For the fourth year in a row, North Korea’s Air Koryo has claimed the dubious honor of being ranked the worst carrier in the world.
But Air Koryo may not be that bad, according to online reviews.
The ranking, based on 13.25 million survey questionnaires compiled by Skytrax, an air-transport research company based in Britain, named Emirates as the world’s best.
The Dubai-based airline, rated four stars on a oneto five-star rating system, wowed passengers with amenities such as onboard showers, lounges, gourmet food and 2,500 channels of movies and television.
Air Koryo was the only one-star rated carrier, which Skytrax said “represents a poor quality of product delivered across the assessment sectors, combining with low and/or inconsistent standards of front-line staff service.”
But to be fair to Air Koryo, several of the 46 reviews posted on the Skytrax website described the carrier as adequate, although not spectacular.
Among the features that raised concerns among reviewers was the onboard meal of hamburgers made of a “mystery meat,” safety demonstrations that often were skipped, entertainment that consisted of propaganda films played in a loop and overhead luggage racks with no doors to keep bags from falling down on fliers during turbulence.
Disney World ending Electrical Parade
The Main Street Electrical Parade at Walt Disney World will soon come to an end.
The last glowing procession down Main Street in the Magic Kingdom will be Oct. 9.
Disney says the parade will next travel cross-country to Disneyland in California for a limited engagement beginning early next year.
The Electrical Parade made its debut at Disneyland in 1972. Versions of it ran in Florida from 1977 to 1991 and then from 1999 to 2001. It returned to Disney World again in 2010.
The parade features half a million shimmering lights. Some of its features include a 23-foot-tall Clock Tower over Cinderella’s Ball, complete with elegant ballroom dancers in light-covered costumes; the smoke-breathing, tail-wagging Pete’s Dragon; and a 108-foot-long red, white and blue flag finale. Classic characters such as Snow White and Peter Pan also appear.
The parade’s musical theme, the electrically synthesized “Baroque Hoedown,” is interwoven with Disney themes.
Disney World guests interested in seeing the parade before it departs on Oct. 9 can check for the latest parade dates and times on WaltDisneyWorld.com or in the My Disney Experience app.
The parade will not appear during Mickey’s Not-So-Scary Halloween Party nights.