We Filipinos love discounts, deals, cheapest, anything that associates with the word savings, we would grab it. Well, you would not want to save some money?
When browsing and researching for flights, be careful and be watchful. Some of these cheapest fares out there have long layovers. An ideal layover in a country is 1 hour to 6 hours. Beyond 6 hours, it will require a really long wait in the airport. The long layovers vary from 12 hrs, 18 hrs, and will require sleeping in the airport and will have an overnight stay. A Transit Visa must be acquired if you are planning to go out of the airport to have a side trip, and when you come back to the airport to continue your main travel, you will pass through that country’s immigration, and you would have to provide all the requirements. This results in a denied entry back to the airport if you fail to provide their requirements and you’d miss your flight altogether.
Another thing to carefully watch is the layover airports. Make sure that the airport you are arriving and leaving from is the same.
In Japan, sometimes you will arrive in Haneda and then leave in Narita. Both said airports are in different locations and so you would have to take a train/shuttle to transfer from one airport to another.
Also, the website will offer the cheapest fare but if you look at the date closely, it is not exactly the date that you wanted. To some passengers, this works; but for those who have a limited time to travel, dates are important and should be precise. So just make sure to look at the dates that you wanted.
So, it is better to talk to a travel agent or if you opt to book it online yourself, you want to filter your research so you can get the flight that matches to your dates of travel you want, number of hours of layover.
So the question stands… Is the cheapest fare always the best deal?
Not exactly! If you want multiple layovers & longer layover time, then it is.
