The 2016 Summer Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro are swiftly approaching, eager travelers are buying their tickets to Olympic Games events,
and it's time for visitors to book their plane tickets. Airplane
tickets from the United States to Brazil are often surprisingly
expensive, but with Brazil's recent recession, ticket prices have been
falling in recent months. However, airfares for summer are much higher
than the off-season, and based on ticket prices for August, it looks
like airfares will stay high throughout the summer. Convenient and less
expensive flights to Brazil can be found with these strategies for how
to score a deal on a flight to the Olympic Games.
Fly from major U.S. hubs
Flight
deals can be found from major U.S. hubs, especially those farther south
in the U.S. Look for tickets from cities like Miami, Dallas, Houston,
Atlanta, New York, and Los Angeles. If those cities aren't a possibility
for you, look for other major cities near you, or consider taking a low
cost airline to one of those hubs.
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For example, residents of the West Coast of the
U.S. may find it cheaper to take Southwest Airlines to L.A. and then
switch airlines to fly to Brazil from L.A.
Fly the cheapest days of the week:
Searching for specific days of the week
can help you in your search for lower fares. Traditionally, flights
that leave on Tuesdays and Wednesdays are the cheapest, while some lower
fares can also be found for Thursdays and Saturdays.
Use sites that allow for search flexibility
With the abundance of airfare search sites
available nowadays, you want to use sites that allow for maximum
flexibility when you search. Here are some of the most popular:
Google Flights:
Google's
new airfare search has one major advantage: it shows a calendar with
the cost of the cheapest flights for every day. After choosing a
departure and arrival city, the calendar will appear, allowing you to
find the cheapest possible days to travel.
Skyscanner:
Sky
scanner allows you to choose the country you want to fly from, the
country you want to fly to, and the month in which you want to fly.
Leaving the search open like this allows you to find the cities with the
lowest fares and the cheapest dates to fly.
Momondo:
Unlike
Skyscanner, Momondo will ask you to choose a specific departure city
and specific dates, but once you search for an example flight, you can
then see other cheaper options, such as nearby dates and nearby
airports. This site is recommended for its ability to crawl airfare
sites directly, providing you with the best possible airfares, and the
option to mix and match airlines.
Sign up for airfare alerts
Airfare
search sites allow you to sign up for airfare deals, a great way to
find the lowest possible price. Enter your preferred departure and
arrival cities, approximate dates, and even target prices, and wait for
notification of lower fares. This strategy is especially useful when you
are not in a rush to buy.
Alternate airports in Brazil
Unfortunately,
the geography of Brazil doesn't allow much flexibility in terms of
alternate airports. Flying into Brazil is usually to Rio de Janeiro or São Paulo,
but the latter is too far from Rio to make this city a reasonable
alternative. Rio de Janeiro is not located near other major cities that
might provide an alternate arrival airport, so if you're planning to
attend the Olympic Games, you'll need to fly into Rio de Janeiro.
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If you're planning to travel around other parts of Brazil
before or after the Games, you could fly into São Paulo or another
major city, but it's unlikely that these options would be more
affordable than flying into Rio, especially once you add the cost
of traveling from that city to Rio by plane or by car.
