Money-Saving Tips
In order to find the lowest fare possible, keep in mind that the less you constrain your flight options, the better your chances are for finding a low fare.Specifying full day travel windows is probably one of the best ways to ensure finding the lowest fare. You may think you'd like to travel in the evening, but if the fare is several hundred dollars cheaper in the morning, you may well change your mind. It is usually best to use full day travel ranges unless you absolutely must leave at a particular time. Once the ITA server has computed your trip options, you will be given the opportunity to compare prices at different times of day and decide for yourself if it is worth leaving at your preferred time.
Unlike other travel sites, ITA respects the time ranges you specify, so take care when using less than a full day range; you will not find a cheap fare at a time outside the range you set. Note also that because ITA can search many more trip options than other sites, there is really no advantage in overly restricting the travel window. The ITA server is unlikely to find a cheaper flight when you narrow the range to less than a full day.
If you are very flexible, you may specify a travel window of more than one day. The ITA website is currently configured to allow searching up to a two day range for each travel segment. It is sometimes possible to find cheaper fares when searching over multiple days.
Another way to take advantage of your flexibility in travel planning is to consider multiple origin and destination airports in the cities from/to which you are traveling. When you enter an origin or destination airport or city, you have the option to additionally consider all airports within some radius. For example, if you are in Boston, and would also be willing to leave from Providence, RI, or Manchester, NH, you could type "Boston" as your origin, and select the "any airports within" checkbox, setting the pulldown menu to 50 miles.
Some caution is in order when using the multi-day and multi-airport features of the ITA site. As currently configured for our website, the search for cheap fares is limited to allow a reasonable number of options to be considered for a typical travel planning query. If you specify overly broad travel windows or many airports, the server will limit the number of travel options considered in order to give a timely response to your query, and it is possible it could miss the cheapest option.
Finally, here are two tips for finding cheap flights which are not specific to using the ITA site. First, in general, tickets are cheaper the further in advance they are bought. Typically, flights are cheapest 21 or more days out, and get progressively more expensive as the advance purchase is reduced to 14, 7, and then 3 and fewer days. Second, spending a Saturday night at your destination may get you a significantly cheaper fare. With a Saturday night stay you are seen as a leisure traveler rather than a business traveler and are eligible for cheaper tickets.