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Travellers are planning longer and more expensive trips despite cost of living pressures and rising airfares — but there’s an easy way they can keep some extra money in their pockets when booking their flights, according to recent data.
Flight comparison site Kayak found that those booking flights could save cash if their travel dates were flexible.
And in good news for travellers, it also says there are signs airfares are stabilising.
A Kayak-commissioned online survey found half of the 1,010 respondents planned to spend more on travel and 45 per cent intended to take longer trips than they did in 2022 — a year in which there was a resurgence in international travel following COVID-19 border closures.
The survey found those planning to take off expected to spend an average of about $8,000 on travel in the next 12 months, and a quarter of respondents expected their itineraries to set them back more than $10,000.
Like Australia, inflation has been running high in some parts of the world, meaning steeper price increases in some categories — although there are signs it’s easing in some countries, including on home soil.
International holiday travel and accommodation prices rose 6.2 per cent in the June quarter, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics’ most recent quarterly inflation data. The Bureau’s head of price statistics, Michelle Marquardt, previously said demand for European holidays was a key driver that had been partially offset by price falls for travel to South East Asia and New Zealand.
When it comes to booking, Kayak found choosing the right day to take off can help travellers save.
It found the average cost of a return, international economy fare in the next 12 months was $1,727. For domestic flights, it was $382.
Fridays were the most expensive for return overseas flights ($1,740 on average), while domestic travellers would pay top dollar ($390 on average) on Thursdays, Kayak found. International travellers save $53 and those heading interstate could get an $18 discount if they booked on Monday, which was found to be the cheapest day to book both kinds of travel.
Angus Kidman, a travel spokesman at financial comparison site Finder, agreed that travellers would typically find cheaper flights mid-week, although he believed that domestic flights to some destinations interstate would likely only be on the cheaper end on Monday afternoons and evenings after the morning business rush was over.
Kidman said there was the potential to save even more money if you booked to travel during off-peak periods and flew out at “less convenient” times.
“Avoid travelling during school holidays if you can… and be aware of the seasonality of the demand of the place where you’re headed to and where you’re leaving from,” Kidman said.
“The other thing, and this depends on where you are in Australia, is that often the cheaper flights are the ones at less convenient times, such as midnight or 1 am,” he said.
Kidman said in order to get the best deal, it was a case of “the sooner the better” for international flights while for domestic flights, there was more flexibility.
“You’ll often find that a couple of months out you can still get fairly good pricing on many domestic routes,” he said.
“If you book closer to your date of departure you’ll typically pay more, although the exception to that is sometimes you’ll see last-minute availability that’s really cheap.”
In August, Qantas said international airfares had risen by 10 per cent when adjusted for inflation, while Virgin Australia said they were 50 per cent above pre-COVID levels. Source: AAP / Mark Baker/AP
He said flight comparison sites could be a useful tool to identify cheap flights, but recommended booking them through the airline directly.
“Firstly, the airline is going to sell them to you as cheaply as possible,” he said. “Secondly, if you book via a website that a comparison site redirects you to, you’ll often have to deal with the booking website rather than the airline if there’s a problem or you need to make a change”.
In August, Qantas said international and domestic airfares had risen by 10 per cent and 4 per cent respectively “in inflation-adjusted terms”. That same month, Virgin Australia CEO Jayne Hrdlicka said they were “about 50 per cent higher than they were pre-COVID”.
Experts have said that high demand amid recovering airline capacity following COVID-19 border closures has been a key reason for higher prices.
Kayak’s research, released in early September, found the average price of an international flight was up 2 per cent year-on-year, while the average domestic flight was up 7 per cent year-on-year — increases it said showed fares appeared to be stabilising.
Kidman said while the days of “really extreme prices” seen late last and early this year appeared to be over, price competition would likely not heat up until mid-next year when capacity is closer to pre-COVID levels.
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