Can my website show my customers flights on the days around their travel date so they can pick a cheaper day?

Yes, this is usually possible, and it is normally called a flexible date search or a fare calendar. Instead of showing only the date the customer typed, the search results page can show the lowest fare for each of the days before and after it, so the traveller can see at a glance that moving the trip by a day or two would cost them less. Customers tend to like it because it feels like they are getting a better deal, and it often turns a browser into a booking.

How well it works depends on the supplier sitting behind the flight API. Some connections return a ready made calendar of lowest fares per day in a single reply, which is quick and easy to show on your website. Others only answer one date at a time, which means the search has to be repeated for each day you want to display, so the page takes longer to load and we normally limit how many days are shown. Low cost airline connections often behave differently from the full service ones here, so the calendar may be fuller on some routes than on others.

One honest limit is that calendar fares are usually indicative rather than guaranteed. They are often built from recent searches or a cached feed, so the fare can move by the time your customer clicks through to the booking page. We always recommend labelling it as a guide and re-checking the live fare before payment, so nobody is surprised at the last step.

If this matters to you, tell us the routes and the airlines your customers book most, and we can check which of your connections return calendar fares and how many days either side we can safely show before we turn it on.