For travelers, finding last minute travel tickets is mostly a function of what you know and where you can find it.  With the Internet, it is now easier that ever before to find these once hidden last minute travel deals.  As more people are concerned about the economy and the health of their finances, getting good deals has become a necessity.  Finding these secret airline deals becomes a must for the average consumer.

What is a last minute travel deal?

A last minute travel deal is a package or fare that must be used within 2 weeks or so of the date of purchase.  One can find these last minute travel deals in different areas including airfare, vacation packages, hotel, car rental and sometimes special event tickets as well.  These last minute travel deals are typically made from unsold inventory (flights, trips, rooms, etc.) that would cost the operators money by remaining unused.  Therefore, many of these operators realize that filling these spots up at a deep discount will keep them from taking a total loss.

The easiest place to find these last minute travel tickets is on the Internet.  There are many sites that search the different booking engines and return a number of results that the searcher can choose from.  In fact, running an online search for last minute travel will return over 45 million search results.  Luckily for the consumer, modern technology gives the consumer many more options than in the past.

One common place to get last minute deals is Travelocity.  This site allows the user to search for vacation packages, hotels, cruises and airfare and last minute deals.  These secret airline deals will be found under last minute packages.  The user can search for last minute deals for airfares and receive the latest deals.  Many times you can save up to $310 between the different booking engines.  This is due to the availability of bookings that each search engine has access to.  Some online booking engines have more inventory than their affiliate partners.
Some of the biggest online travel package service providers like Orbitz, and Expedia always have a stock of limited wholesale fares that save you over 70% off of the standard fares.  Make sure you look in the last minute or 11th  our travel deals.  As you are looking through these deals, when you find an itinerary and price that you like, get it immediately because it will not last long.  There have been many a travel discount hopeful who saw a great deal and wanted to sleep on it or think about it for a while, only to find that deal gone when they came back the next day or even several hours later.

Getting last minute travel tickets can be done easily on line when you know which online providers offer these types of packages.  There are many different sites that offer these deals and it is best to look at more than one aggregator before paying for your package because sometimes you can save over $300 between the different offers alone.  For most people this is the best they will be able to do, but for those that have access to the secret deals, they can get even bigger discounts.

There is a growing trend among travelers today and that trend is to wait until the last minute before you book a flight. Unfortunately, the way most airline pricing structures are set up, the longer you wait and the closer you get to your deadline, the more you will end up paying for your ticket. So why is the trend going in the opposite direction? Well, if you know where to look for last minute air flight discounts, you can find good deals online so you don’t have to pay the “premium” price.

Many believe these discount deals are no longer an “insider’s paradise” and if you know where to go, you can get a great deal for yourself. Many travelers are booking directly with airline carriers themselves and cutting out the middleman so they can negotiate a better price. Other travelers are finding package deals that include discount travel, destination vacation and are combining other services such as hotel or car rental. Others are taking advantage of specialized niche services that only focus on one small travel niche, such as cruises, all inclusive deals, or even a particular area of the world. These service providers have worked out special deals because they are better able to move inventory that might otherwise sit vacant.

So where can you find such deals online? If you do a search for “last minute airfare” you will see a huge number of results come up. Once site that comes up is called “Booking Buddy” and they are an aggregator airfare search engine that looks at all of the last minute deals that are available from the online booking engines. In addition to airfare, you can also search for vacation packages, cruises, vacation rentals, hotels and car rentals. This is a good place to start to look for great deals.

Another place that you can check out online if you are looking for travel within North America, are the airlines themselves. You will need to go and look for special deals within their website. If you don’t find any listed on their website, don’t give up hope. Call them and see what they have available in terms of last minute deals. If they don’t have anything, and you don’t know how to pull out the big guns on them, then go to the next available airline.

The site “C Fares” actually goes to the different flight booking engines and compares last minute air flight discounts across the different engines. This gives you a good idea on which booking engines are going to give you the better deals. In running through an actual search, there was as much as $200 difference on a flight from New York City to Denver. It is worth your while to look beyond the first result you get.

The process of getting last minute air flight discounts is really one of deciding where you want to go and then finding the different search engine flight aggregators to help you simultaneously look up the available flights. Don’t stop at the first result you get because you can save yourself several hundred dollars if you just poke around a bit further. To really know how to get the lowest deals with the airlines directly, sometimes you need additional insider information that can get you the steep discounts.

You don’t need a lot of money to travel well, especially if you know where to look to find some amazing deals. There are many sources both offline and online that are great places to look for last minute travel deals. There are ways to take advantage of discounts and saving opportunities, limited offers, getting secret tips from other fellow last minute travelers who know a thing or two and just plain old bargain hunters. There are many lessons we can learn from these travelers that will help us with our next trip. So where are the 5 best places to find these travel deals?

1) Web pages and travel websites

There are many specific online providers who focus only on the hottest deals for vacation packages and discounts in other areas of travel, such as airfare, or hotel. These sites have access to the unsold inventory of many special travel packages. Brokerages and discount fare operators are also a great place to look for last minute fares and sales online.

2) Travel specialists portals

These portals are like a clearinghouse of last minute travel deals. Many of these sites are set up like reverse auctions such as priceline.com where you set your price, but you have to be completely flexible as to when you can travel. Sometimes you will have to be prepared for multiple connections and odd times and dates to get your price.

3) Travel newsletters

There are a number of industry travel newsletters, magazines, email lists and ezines that offer insider travel tips, such has how to book cheap seats and score cheap hotel rooms. These sources can also tell you what to expect in pricing in different locations as well. Using the information from these sources is a great way to do some comparison-shopping and to get the opportunity to travel to places that were normally out of your reach before.

4) Your booking agent

If it’s between getting a sale and getting nothing, your booking agent can be a great source for discount and last minute deals. If you mention you will only travel with last minute deals then you can communicate to them that they check the specials and limited availability options only.

5) Resort, time-shares and other promotions

These are great places to get last minute travel information. Many of these places are associated with tourist boards and other information centers that know about last minute and typically unpublished travel deals. You can get a great deal beyond relying only on seat sales.

These are the five best places to look for discount last minute travel. Most of these places are not new; it just may be that they are not thought of as places to look for travel deals because we are so online focused in our mindset to look for travel deals. Start out with a few destinations in mind and search through these resources to discover what would be the best way to find discounted deals on airfare, hotels, and other vacation packages.