Several services now offer help in scheduling tickets that are good for multi-city travel. Buying them enables airlines to register an early sale and, in turn, provides passengers with discounts. There are numerous travel articles extolling the potential discounts and web sites for these discounters include positive comments from satisfied travelers.
Generally, these services establish a few simple guidelines:
- Define the airline stops you plan to take on your trip; more stops equals more money.
- It’s cheaper to establish a direction–west-to-east or east-to-west–with the knowledge that you need to continue in that direction, you can’t use your ticket to backtrack.
- It’s cheaper to avoid crossing the equator.
- Finish your travel during a twelve month period.
- You need to define specific dates for your flights, though these can be changed while you are en route. For a fee.
The savings can be significant; the estimate for the six stop trip in the screen capture above was under five thousand dollars. But airlines have been using dynamic pricing since the 1980s and as AI algorithms get more sophisticated, patient and flexible travelers can expect lower prices overall. Have you ever compared ticket prices with your fellow plane passengers? We’re no longer surprised that our seatmate may have paid half of what we’ve spent. Or paid next to nothing by using travel points earned with a credit card.
So, if you’re planning a multi country trip which will take a year or less and have a solid list of cities you expect to visit, check out AirTreks. I found their web site the easiest to navigate, and perhaps as importantly, I was assigned a knowledgeable human being to consult with who was available for chat, email or a phone call.
On the other hand, if you’re like us and your itinerary might be derailed by someone in a bar offering to take you to their family’s pox distillery up in the mountains of Chiapas, you might want to skip the package deal and buy tickets when you want them.