This week, we’re proud to feature a guest post from our friends at CheapflightsUK.

When shopping around for airlines tickets, you may have noticed that prices don’t work in your favor when booking more than one ticket on the same itinerary. As vacationers take to the skies again, airlines have found yet another way to raise prices.

The Key to Paying Less for Multiple-Ticket Airfares

There is a way to maneuver around this roadblock and make sure each ticket you book is at the lowest possible price. However, first you have to understand how the airlines determine their price point and price each individual ticket.

How the Airlines Price Two or More Passengers on the same Itinerary

Airline reservation systems work on a simple level when quoting prices for the booking of trips with two or more passengers. If the lowest fare category doesn’t have enough availability for your whole party, the system will automatically bump all of your tickets up to the next highest fare. If that fare doesn’t have enough availability either, it’ll bump up once more to the next highest fare.

So instead of one or more of your group getting the last of those lower fares, you’ll all pay a premium.

But fear not! You can beat the system and book each ticket at its cheapest price. All it takes is one simple booking tip.

Book your Group One Passenger at a Time

Your best bet is to price shop for the first passenger on your itinerary. Use that price as your basis of comparison before searching for the other seats.

Be sure to check out multiple websites when shopping around. At any given time, different airfare sites can display a variety of ticket prices and seat inventories. This is where Cheapflights can make the entire process a breeze by presenting price comparisons with more than one site all in one location. Particularly when dealing with a tight seat supply for a vacation period or holiday weekend, this becomes both a lifesaver and real money-saver. You can even use this cost comparison technique when booking award seats for part of your traveling party.

It’s OK To Split A Ticket Purchase

It’s perfectly fine to split your group ticket purchase, even if you all plan to travel on the same flight. Book each ticket individually if necessary to take advantage of the lowest available fare. This can prevent your entire group of tickets from being bumped up unnecessarily to a higher price.

Online Booking Hint

When booking online, open more than one browser on your screen. Book your reservations and then bring both transactions to the credit card payment page. Pay and complete each ticket purchase right after the other. Some airline sites also have what is known as a “hold” feature that works well when booking multiple tickets.

As a precaution, always review both the cancellation and change policies for each and every ticket purchase. Being sure to do this one thing before making that credit card payment, can make for greater piece of mind later on.

When booking your tickets, try to choose seats so at least two or more of your passengers can sit near one other. If seating is important to you or someone else you are flying with, paying an extra fee for “Preferred Seat Selection” may be well worth the extra costs involved.

Online airline reservations systems will typically have a limit of six to eight passengers per ticket purchase itinerary. If your travel group is made up of more than that number of passengers, you should phone the “Group Sales” of the airline so that they can override this online maximum for you.

Don’t Forget!

When booking airline reservations for more than one passenger in your family or group of travelers, always price shop for that one passenger ticket first. This way, you are in possession of a solid price point on which to base other displayed rates.