when and how to pay less

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Advance your wake-up time to pay less for your plane ticket : this is a technique used by some travelers. And she’s not the only one. “When you book in advance, the initial purchase price announced is cheaper than if you buy it the day before,” says a traveler. “We choose the dates in order to pay a reasonable price”, adds another. Others, on the other hand, have a hard time finding their way around. “When you book plane tickets, there are times when prices go up and down. When you want to order, things change. We don’t understand anything, in fact,” confides a traveler.

So how do plane ticket prices vary? How do you go about traveling as cheaply as possible? We looked behind our labels. Or rather, behind our plane tickets.

In Oise, Matthieu Herault, an investor in rental real estate, is used to low-cost airlines. He knows the price variations. But a few days ago, he wanted to book a round trip between Beauvais and Tenerife. In the morning, on the site, very attractive prices, but when you get your tickets the same evening, you get a bad surprise: “There, I actually see that the outward journey which was 16 euros has increased to 104. And the return which was 25 has increased to 149. So basically, we are on a round trip at 250 euros. That’s an increase of 500% compared to the morning.”

Prices that explode in just a few hours, a first for this traveler. “I take the plane 12 times a year. Regularly, I’m used to prices varying. That’s true. But variations not in that order. Never seen before. That was unheard of”, adds Matthieu Herault.

To understand these variations, we tested it ourselves by booking a low-cost flight to another destination, between Beauvais and Lisbon at the beginning of December. Between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. that day, our ticket increased by €16. Another example with a Paris-Orly – Barcelona mid-December: between 6 a.m. and 6 p.m., plus €11. Price increases during the day, but no explosion.

Several factors can cause prices to change: upwards during holiday periods, downwards thanks to competition between companies. But what is decisive, according to Guillaume Rostand, marketing director at Liligo, is above all the occupancy level of a flight: “The closer we get to the departure date, the more the price will tend to increase. For a fairly simple reason, it is that there is a limited stock. So many seats on a plane, and the company’s objective will be to fill it. It therefore creates a first price generally quite low, then the line increases as the date approaches.

According to him, there is no point in getting up early: it is better to book your ticket as soon as possible. If this is not possible, other options exist, such as subscribing to alerts on flight comparators, sometimes with good surprises, even at the last minute. Eva Fouquet, vice-president of Kayak, explains: “If the flight date gets closer and there are seats left on the plane, there may be a price drop. You may receive this alert and a lower price than what you saw when you searched.”

Finally, some sites offer one-off promotions with combined flight + hotel offers.