The pros of booking your flights well in advance far outweigh the few benefits of waiting for some last minute offer. In fact, airlines start pushing up prices with the approach of the take off date. Here are some of the excuses to buy your airline tickets well ahead in time.

Better Deals

Making advance flight bookings allow you to make accurate comparisons of airlines and prices. Most airlines are in a stiff competition to undercut each other and starting your search in advance gives you a vast array of prices to choose from. In fact, no travel should be undertaken without a meticulous price comparison.

Bargaining Power

After you have booked your flights, you might find that the airline slash its rates at a later stage. This gives you the chance to ask the airline for a refund of the extra price that it charged you although it would depend upon the discretion of the airline.

Further Choice

Other than bagging cheap airline tickets, you also stand a higher chance of satisfying other requirements. For instance, if you are looking for flights from London to New Delhi, there is a fair possibility that there would be numerous carriers flying to your destination at different times of the day. So, you get to select the airline of your choice based on parameters like airline safety records, arrival and departure times, layovers, and in flight meals.

Easy Boarding

Those who make an early online booking have their boarding pass and seat confirmation well ahead in time by means of facility called online check-in. Such passengers don't need to join the queue at the check-in counter or wait for the customer agent to cram them in or put them into the stand-by list.

Free Travel Opportunity

By booking early, you stand the chance of landing a seat on an overbooked flight. In such situations, the airline might ask you to surrender your seat in lieu of a seat on some other flight. They can even compensate you with a free round trip ticket later on.

How to get cheap Last Minute Deals

Sometimes last minute travel plans can't be helped due hectic and unforeseen circumstances. However, this is no reason for getting fleeced. Here are some tips to deal with such situations.

Call the Airline

Airlines often overbook their flights as last minute cancellations are quite normal. Sometimes, if they have such a vacant seat at the last moment, they sell it for a pittance rather than let it go waste. By calling the airline, you get the chance to grab such a seat or some other unadvertised deal.

Contact a Ticket Consolidator

Ticket Consolidators buy high volumes of airline tickets and sell it to passengers for a profit. Like airlines, they also sometimes face the situation of unsold tickets. In such scenarios, they might just go in for a distress sale just a few days or hours before the flight takes off.