Is Tuesday really the cheapest day?

According to an article in today´s Daily Mail, a survey showed that the best time to book a flight is 34 days before departure .... if you want to bag a bargain! Apparently, the cheapest day to travel out is on a Tuesday and returning on a Wednesday!

I try all combinations when planning to travel and often start looking months in advance. If you are working and have to book time off work then its very difficult to adhere to those suggestions - once you have booked time off you want to ensure that you have your flight.

I have been running a poll myself asking which airline you use to fly to Alicante - the leader and most popular is Easyjet at 28%, followed by Jet2 with 21% and then Ryanair at 20%. Trailing behind was Monarch at 12% and just behind then Thomson with only 11%. We are lucky that most carriers fly to Alicante but some unfortunately do not have the luxury of choice. If traveling from a smaller airport the so called "low cost budget airlines" charge what they want with this knowledge!

El Altet Alicante airport

Often they are not cheaper at all, once you start adding on all the extras such as luggage and allocated seating. Monarch, Easyjet and Ryanair now all charge extra if you want to pre-book your seating, but you can just turn up at the check in and be allocated one at no extra charge. It depends how fussy you are about where you sit and if traveling in a party whether you specifically want to be seated together. I can´t imagine that they would split (young) children up from parents, but this is often the tactic that they use to almost scare you into paying to "guarantee" that you will be together. Personally, I´d have been  quite happy for 2 hours of peace on my own!

But new to Alicante are British Airways, who start flying from London Heathrow at the end of this month. They are offering an "all inclusive" price like they did in the old days - not that old though as I still remember them! Allocated seat, hold luggage and refreshments, which includes a snack... and starting at 80 GBP - which is cheaper than traveling on a "budget" carrier in some cases! You really do need to shop around if you have the choice of airlines and don´t assume that one will be cheaper than another.