Tips for air travel: How to find deals and when to book

FILE - In this Aug. 26, 2016, file photo, a Southwest Airlines jet makes its approach to Dallas Love Field airport, in Dallas. Booking flights can be stressful as consumers worry about how to get the best deal and how far ahead to book, especially at holiday time. Experts say check multiple websites for prices and forget the notion that there's a magic day of the week or time of day when fares drop.(AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez, File) FILE - In this Aug. 26, 2016, file photo, a Southwest Airlines jet makes its approach to Dallas Love Field airport, in Dallas. Booking flights can be stressful as consumers worry about how to get the best deal and how far ahead to book, especially at holiday time. Experts say check multiple websites for prices and forget the notion that there's a magic day of the week or time of day when fares drop.(AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez, File)

By Associated Press October 31, 2017 5 min read

NEW YORK – Booking air travel is stressful. How far in advance should you book? Did you get the best fare?

That anxiety is magnified this time of year as travelers finalize holiday plans and look ahead to winter getaways and spring break. In an interview with AP Travel’s “Get Outta Here” podcast , AirfareWatchdog.com founder George Hobica offered some advice for finding the best deals.

FARE SEARCHES AND PRICE TRACKING

“Sign up for airfare alerts,” Hobica said. “There are many website products that will give you an alert when the fare goes up or down,” including AirfareWatchdog, Google Flights, Expedia, Kayak and Priceline.

Just remember not all airlines are tracked by every website. For example, Delta flights don’t show up on Hopper, JetBlue no longer sells tickets on Vayama and Southwest bans third-party websites from automatically scraping its data. AirfareWatchdog includes Southwest flights by manually collecting the information.