Airfares going cheap - but gone in seconds!
June 11th 2010 00:08
Category: No Category
I remember April 2008, when Air Asia only just started flying to and from Australia that they had a 'pay taxes only' sale. I went online, spent a good hour looking through every single date during the travel dates and eventually found myself the eligible flights for the sale fare and flew from Gold Coast to Kuala Lumpur to Kota Kinabalu and back to Melbourne, for a total of $440 per person.
Just yesterday Air Asia released another sale, for airfare Australia to London (via Kuala Lumpur, which different legs of the trip needed to be purchased seperately) for less than $250 - and by the looks of it, it was gone in a couple of hours. All 4000 seats.
Return Flights under $250 to London sold out within hours - SMH.com.au
It's all well and truly good that low cost airlines offer these exceptional value sales, Jetstar, Virgin and Tiger all had their go at it, and it was always very popular. However for the average joe who can't always be online and waiting for the clock to strike so they can get in first to check out the sale, there is almost no point in hoping.
I remember in the travel agency days we used to have people waiting at the door for us to open to purchase that advertised airfare to Melbourne for $39, not understanding that limited seats were available and are usually gone by the first day the sales start, unless you have to start looking at really distant future to travel, which in most of our client's cases, it wasn't a viable option.
The tip is, that you need to be flexible and readily available to travel as soon as some sale gets released, and travel at whatever date you can find the seats for. Understandably not everyone can do so, but for those who can, and can plan well ahead in the future, I still suggest looking out for these sales because if you can get the seats, it's good value. Don't rely on tv/newspaper advertisements though. By the time the prints come out, they are probably already sold out. The best way is to sign up to all the airline email notifications, as they generally tell you when the sale will start at least a day in advance!
Just yesterday Air Asia released another sale, for airfare Australia to London (via Kuala Lumpur, which different legs of the trip needed to be purchased seperately) for less than $250 - and by the looks of it, it was gone in a couple of hours. All 4000 seats.
Return Flights under $250 to London sold out within hours - SMH.com.au
It's all well and truly good that low cost airlines offer these exceptional value sales, Jetstar, Virgin and Tiger all had their go at it, and it was always very popular. However for the average joe who can't always be online and waiting for the clock to strike so they can get in first to check out the sale, there is almost no point in hoping.
I remember in the travel agency days we used to have people waiting at the door for us to open to purchase that advertised airfare to Melbourne for $39, not understanding that limited seats were available and are usually gone by the first day the sales start, unless you have to start looking at really distant future to travel, which in most of our client's cases, it wasn't a viable option.
The tip is, that you need to be flexible and readily available to travel as soon as some sale gets released, and travel at whatever date you can find the seats for. Understandably not everyone can do so, but for those who can, and can plan well ahead in the future, I still suggest looking out for these sales because if you can get the seats, it's good value. Don't rely on tv/newspaper advertisements though. By the time the prints come out, they are probably already sold out. The best way is to sign up to all the airline email notifications, as they generally tell you when the sale will start at least a day in advance!
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