Save considerable sums on your plane tickets

With a few clicks and a little flexibility, you can save hundreds of dollars on your next getaway. Whether you're an occasional or seasoned traveller, buying a plane ticket can be a worry. Have I paid the right price? Should I have waited a week or two, hoping that fares would go down? And if I were to change my return date, would that reduce the cost? Just as airsickness can be soothed by a few Gravol tablets, pre-booking anxiety also has a solution: a few clicks and a little flexibility.

Use Fare Alerts Various applications let you know whether it's better to buy your next plane ticket immediately or to wait, taking into account your personal criteria such as departure and return dates, number of stopovers and desired level of comfort. The famous Hopper (a Montreal company) and Kayak applications work on the same principle. They analyse billions of current and past ticket prices to anticipate changes in the cost of your trip over the coming weeks, often with great precision. According to Hopper, by following its recommendations, you will obtain a fare equivalent to or lower than that of your initial search in 95 % of cases, and save an average of 15 % on each flight.

On 6 April, I was looking for a direct return flight from Montreal to London during the construction holidays, departing on 24 July and returning on 6 August. Hopper and Kayak identified a flight for around $970 (including taxes, but without checked baggage) and advised me to wait. On 8 April, the price was the same, but the applications recommended buying then. And rightly so: on 21 April, Kayak had the best fare at 1,061 dollars and Hopper at 1,220 dollars.

In short, by following Hopper's recommendation, I would have avoided a price increase of 250 dollars (or 26 %). Enough to allow me to enjoy a few fish and chips on the spot.

Same departure and return dates, again from Montreal, but this time for a non-stop flight to San Francisco. On 6 April, Kayak posted a return fare of $749 and suggested the purchase. Two weeks later, the offer had risen by $80, an increase of 11 %.

The result: both applications proved reliable in indicating the right time to buy, but it would have taken several more weeks to validate the savings predicted by their algorithms.

Google Flights, the very popular site, uses data from the last 12 months to determine whether the prices displayed in your search are low, normal or high.

These price forecasting tools are effective, confirms UQAM professor Mohamed Reda Khomsi, a specialist in artificial intelligence applied to the tourism sector. "It works well, although it was perhaps even more accurate before the pandemic.

The lack of data over the past two years, the uncertainty surrounding the recovery of air transport and the fluctuating price of fuel can make application forecasts less accurate, he explains. Hopper stresses that its 95 % success rate remains thanks to the real-time adaptation of its algorithms, while Kayak did not respond to our questions.

Watch out for Good Deals Professor Khomsi's advice for reducing the cost of your plane tickets? Use all the tools at your disposal. Price forecasting applications like Hopper and Kayak, of course, but also all the platforms that instantly alert you to special offers. These include Google Flights, Expedia and Flighthub, among others. That's how I found out, at 6.18am on a Tuesday morning, that a flight from Montreal to Paris that I'd been following for some time had just been reduced from $1,016 to $785. A saving of 231 dollars.

The various booking platforms can offer variable fares depending on the agreements signed with the airlines," stresses Mohamed Reda Khomsi, "which is why it is so important to activate all possible notifications.

Adopt the Adventurous Spirit Parents of school-going children can skip this tip, but for those who have the freedom to travel at any time of the year, the potential savings are even greater.

On Google Flights, check out the 'Explore' tab. If you search for any one-week trip over the next six months, for example, you could find a flight from Montreal to Vancouver for $117, to Paris for $529 or to Barcelona for $640. Prices two to three times lower than during the high season. Kayak offers a similar tool for finding the best discounts.

Be Flexible with Dates You can save a lot, a little or nothing at all, depending on your destination, the period of your trip and your constraints. Sometimes, a slightly longer stopover or a shift of a few days in your travel dates can save you several hundred dollars. For example, a non-stop flight from Montreal to Barcelona between 24 July and 6 August would currently cost $1,215, whereas the same return journey from 26 July to 9 August would cost $911, a difference of $304.

Use your Points Another tip from Mohamed Reda Khomsi: credit card points programmes. A quick search will reveal numerous cards offering loyalty programmes that allow you to accumulate points that can be exchanged for airline tickets. Air Canada's Aeroplan programme is one of the best known.

As these are credit cards, you need to be careful. Keep an eye on membership fees, read the terms and conditions carefully and make sure you don't overextend yourself. However, if you use them wisely, they can be very beneficial.