Every traveler hopes to land a cheap flight at any given time. I am sure you are one of them and I am too. So, today, we are going to give you the seven cheapest flight ticket websites that you can use to book a cheap flight. I am sure you would love that, right? Well, it’s time to get started. So, let’s go.
So many times when searching for the availability of flights using reward points, it can be an issue. This is especially true when it comes to premium cabin classes like business class or first class. This means that sometimes we just have to pay for our flights upfront and if you’re someone who doesn’t focus on earning credit card reward points, then unfortunately paying cash is the only option that you have.
However, that doesn’t mean that you have to overpay for your flights and chances are you’ve actually already overpaid for them in the past. I know I have done so previously. So that’s why in today’s video I’m going to run through seven different tips and tricks on how you can find cheaper airfares.
Make sure you stay till the last tip because the last method is a guaranteed way of how you can secure cheaper International airfares without having to do any of the leg work yourself. These tips are going to be a combination of different search engines and online tools to just general tips you can use when searching for your next flight.
One of the websites I am going to mention was even sued by United Airlines for exploiting loopholes in the airline industry. But, that’s water under the bridge and won’t affect you. So, let’s continue.
Now whenever you are searching for flights, I always recommend visiting three different websites or search engines to ensure that you’re getting the best price possible and I highly recommend you always start with Google flights. And, let me tell you why. Google flights is a search engine that essentially aggregates flights and prices across most airlines. The most basic way to use it is to simply input your flight details. For example, let’s look for one-way flights from Melbourne, Australia to London, England departing on the 26th of November. It will always show you the best flights at the top so in this case, it is showing that the best deal would be to fly with China Airlines to London.
You can also add a ton of different filters to enhance your search results such as filtering by airline alliances, price maximums, departure and arrival times. Select the itinerary that you like and then Google will provide you with several options as to where you can book the airline.
The cheapest one I found in this instance is for around $750 and that is one way. It is important to note that Google Flights is simply a search engine. It is not a booking engine and so you’ll still end up having to book directly with the airline, a third party website like Skyscanner or a travel agent.One of my favorite features of Google flights is the date grid, which essentially shows you the optimal pricing based on different departure times or arrival dates. Google will even highlight the best days for you to fly in terms of price. What you’ll notice is that the more flexible you can be with your travel dates, the more potential savings you can rack up.
Leaving even one day later or one day earlier can save you hundreds of dollars on your airfare costs. You also have the ability to search up to five different arrival and departure airports, which can mean a huge difference in the amount of taxes that you need to pay on your airfare.
For example, if you wanted to fly from London to Dubai then you’re going to pay over $400 in taxes, fees and fuel surcharges. If you were to travel in business class as opposed to economy, you would pay more.Once you find the cheapest flights, keep that tab open on Google Flights and open a new one and then plug in the next website which is Mondo. Now Mondo is another powerful flight comparison tool and I kind of compare it to Skyscanner, except I find Mondo to be even better. It’s a powerful fair comparison tool that not only compares the prices from airlines directly, but from a variety of different reputable online travel brokers. I personally use this over skyscanner sometimes because I find that it often covers more booking agencies and displays more results.If you’re searching for a return flight, then they also look into different carriers for your departure and return flights. Mixing and matching airlines is another great way to save money on your airfare costs. These days, you might find that it’s actually cheaper to fly from Melbourne to London with one airline and then back with another airline.Now, the next step in the process is to search for those exact same dates that we found on Google flights, except this time, you will be using Mondo. So in this case, I found those exact same flights that I found on Google Flights for around $50 less through another travel agency. Once we’ve finished the search for our flights with Mondo, let’s search for those exact same flights with the last online search engine tool which is Skiplagged.This site’s claim to fame is that it can search for hidden city tickets. These are tickets where you buy a flight with a layover in the city that you actually want to arrive in. This was the website that was sued by United Airlines but they ended up having that case thrown out.If you’re confused with how it works, let’s say that you wanted to get from airport A to airport C, but the flight also has a layover in airport B which is actually the destination that you wanted to get to originally. Oftentimes, these tickets can be cheaper than buying a direct flight from airport A to airport B. While I find the concept of hidden city tickets pretty awesome, I’ve found that it generally only applies to people who live in the United States.So, if you live in Australia, for example, it means that you are so geographically far from everyone and so there’s really very few hidden city tickets that you could take advantage of. But, regardless of this, skiplagged search function still does a really good job of combining flights from different airlines to find you the best price possible.The last step in the process is to pretty much plug in those exact same dates into skiplagged to see if you can find even cheaper airfares. So, in this case through skiplagged, I wasn’t able to find any cheaper flights than what I found on Mondo, but now at least we’ve verified that we’ve most likely found the cheapest flights possible, So,if you’re happy about everything, then you can go ahead and book that airfare.I will preface, though, that if you’re booking your flights through an online travel agent, there definitely are some disadvantages as opposed to booking directly with an airline. Some of the disadvantages that you might run into are hidden fees and charges that could catch you off guard if you aren’t careful. Secondly, customer service can oftentimes be an issue, causing delays in resolving flight disruptions and flight cancellations. Finally, you might not be able to access your loyalty program benefits, which will only hinder your point accrual and perks.The pros of using an online travel agent is really the convenience and the range of choices that you have, allowing you to mix and match different airlines to optimize your flights such that you’re paying the lowest amount possible. Personally, I’ve used both online travel agents and booked directly with airlines and I haven’t really run into any issues so far.Therefore, it’s really just a personal preference. But, in my opinion, if you really want the cheapest airfare possible, then more than likely you’re going to have to book through an online travel agent.
The next website to use to help you find cheaper flights is another one from Google, except this time, it’s the Google Explore function. This is when you’re not locked into a specific country to arrive in. Let’s say you want to get from Melbourne to Europe, but you’re flexible in terms of which country you arrive into. Simply type in Europe as your destination in Google Explore. Then, you can very easily see the cheapest country to fly into. I personally do this all the time when I’m planning my trip to Europe.
The most expensive flight is always getting into Europe. After that, there are plenty of budget airlines you can fly with to get around Europe, I can’t tell you how many $50 RyanAir flights I’ve taken from one European country to another and if you don’t want to fly then how about just hopping on the Eurostar and taking the train to your next destination, if you want to save money. The specific day of the week you book your departure airline flights for really does matter.
I understand that this can be tough, especially if you have limited time off. However, try to plan as far in advance as possible because sometimes you can save up to $300 to $500 simply by departing on Thursday as opposed to Friday. Rather than picking your dates first, try to see when it’s actually cheapest to travel and then work backwards from there. Overall, Friday and Sunday are usually the most expensive days to fly out whilst Tuesday, Wednesday and Saturday are the absolute cheapest days,
The next tip is kind of like an urban myth as to whether or not it actually helps you find cheaper airfares and that’s to clear your browser cookie history before booking your flight. Many industry experts will swear by this, saying that airlines and online travel agencies will drop a cookie into your browser history when you first search for that very first flight and then begin to put up the price when you return to their page. It’s kind of like making you feel pressured to buy immediately before the airfares go up even higher. Others will swear that there’s no hard evidence and that this is just a function of supply and demand that airlines use. Who knows anyway? But, it is best to follow the trend. It won’t hurt, either way.Prices can always change minute by minute, based on a variety of different factors, from past bookings demand for particular dates remaining, available seats, and the probability that airlines might sell out seat capacity later, if you wait too long to book. Nevertheless, just go ahead and try clearing the cookies or opening a new incognito browser when you search for your next flight.The last method is guaranteed to find you cheaper flights, if you have a little bit of patience and that’s by using fare alerts. What do I mean by that? Well, instead of diligently searching across the web trying to find the cheapest flights possible, signing up for fare alerts for the specific flight that you’re looking for is a great strategy. It will save you time and take the guesswork out of the equation.There are a number of different services that you can use to monitor price fares that will actually notify you as to when the price matches or falls below the target of what you’re looking for. Skyscanner does offer fare alerts. I will leave a link in the description so you can go see for yourself. And the fare alert feature is free. Just search for your destination and dates of travel and you can choose the fare alert feature to get notified by email.And for Google Flights, it is the same. Just simply enter in your email where you want the fare alerts to arrive and you’ll receive updates in Google flights. You can also turn on the track flights feature and as long as you’re logged into your Google account then you’ll begin receiving email updates on price changes. Justfly.com also offers these features. It is a website similar to Skiplagged.You can also subscribe to other fare alert websites like flight.com or thepilot.com, which will essentially scrape the web and find cheap flight deals across multiple International destinations. Just sign up and set up your alerts and you’ll receive an email update when those deals are found.So, those are the different ways of how you can find cheaper flights for your next holiday destination. Search Skyscanner Here!Please subscribe to our Youtube Channel Here!
