Airlines deals:Know when to look. Some of the best "blooper" fares and other low fares show up on Saturday mornings. We can only speculate why, but here are the best theories:
Airlines can only change fares once a day (around 5 PM) on Saturday and Sunday. So, if you're an airline fare analyst, and you're trying to sneak one over your competition, you'll do it with the last fare change on Friday night, which appears in Travelocity, Orbitz, etc. around 1 or 2 AM on Saturday morning. Your competition can't match your sale fares until the 5 PM Saturday update (those fares appear in Travelocity around 8 or 9 PM that night).Airfare analysts work under a great deal of pressure, and when are they most likely to enter a fare typo into their computer systems? Probably on Friday night, after a long hard week, with the 10 PM fare update (after all, they're human, they've had a hard week, and mistakes do happen). And these 10 PM fare mistakes stick around until the 5 PM Saturday update, so you have all day Saturday to snag them.
airline deals: Check fares often. Because airfares fluctuate like the stock market, you need to check them every day, sometimes two or three times a day, if you’re serious about saving money. Airlines can update domestic fares three times a day during the week (at 10 AM, 12.30 PM, and 8 PM EST), and once on Saturday and Sunday at 5 PM EST (international fares are updated just once a day). And another little tip: be sure to clear the “cookies” on your internet browser (on Explorer you do this under the “tools” menu and “internet options” sub menu). Why do this? If a fare changes between two separate searches done over time on the same route, some fare search engines may return the results you viewed earlier rather than the new, lower results.
