How to score the cheapest flights for lower travel costs
Tips for finding the cheapest flights! Flight prices can make or break the travel budget and are often the thing that keeps people from being able to afford travel.
There are times when expensive flights can be inevitable. If you’re flying from a state without an international airport (me!) to a place across the world, the price will likely reflect that.
Or, if you have strict dates and a strict destination, you are going to have to pay whatever the prices is; there is no magic to decrease the flight price.
HOWEVER, there are definitely ways to help reduce the price and get the best deals on your flights. Here are the ways I try to get the best deals when booking flights!
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How Much Should you Realistically Expect to Pay for a Flight?
Before we dive into getting the “cheapest flights” you should probably have a baseline of what you should expect to pay for a flight.
Domestic Flights
For fellow-US resident domestic fliers, flight prices within the United States vary SO much.
But.
From Little Rock, AR I expect to pay $350 to $400 round-trip. Anything under this is a pretty good domestic deal and anything more than this is creeping into me switching my destination or dates if I can.
I have flown for as low as $150 round trip with baggage to places like Colorado to ski. So you can definitely find flights less than $300, but, realistically, you shouldn’t EXPECT that.
(I’ve also paid much more than this (like $650) for a flight to Seattle in the summer time 🙃)
But, again, $350-400 is a good starting point.
International Flights
What about international flights?
From Little Rock, AR I expect to pay ~$750-850 for flights to Europe and ~$900-$1,100 for round trip international flights to places like Asia, Oceania, etc that are further away.
Anything under $750 to Europe is really a good deal (I’ve found flights to Amsterdam, Nice, France, Tunisia, Africa and more for less than $600!) If you see these prices, BOOK.
Flights to Europe and Asia can get a lot higher if you try to book at the wrong time (too close to departure) or during busy season. But, once they get too far above my “expected” price, I deem it a bad deal and typically change my destination and plan.
If you live near a huge hub (Dallas, Chicago, Atlanta, etc) you will find much better domestic and international flight prices than me of course.
Tips for getting your flights at the best price
If you can get your flights at a good price it is a GAME CHANGER in the traveling business. With good flight prices, it lowers your overall cost of your trip and allows room in the budget for activities or splurging during your trip.
Here are a 9 strategies I use or recommend to try to find the cheapest flights (so we can fit more travel into the year!)
1. Use the “Anywhere” Tools
This is the number one way I have flown cheap throughout the last couple of years.
In my free time, I go to Google Flights and put in “from my home airport” and “to anywhere.” This will show you flight prices around the world!
This is the best way to see an overview of flight prices if you are open to going anywhere!
I found $350 round trip flights to Madrid this way, which was only about $50 more than the flights to Utah we had originally been looking at.
In full transparency, sometimes the flight prices shown are the worst possible flights; long layovers or multiple layovers, etc. But not all the time!
This is a good starting point and then you may have to adjust a little once you start booking!
P.S. I ALWAYS book directly with the airlines. Though you can sometimes find deals on third-parties like Expedia, if something happens to your flight (cancel, delay, etc) the airlines are way more opt to help you if you have booked directly with them!
2. Track Flight Trends
If you have a hard set date, one of the best ways to ensure you get the lowest price is to track the price trends. You can do this through a couple different places.
Google Flights: If you search a flight on Google Flights, you can sign up for emails when flight prices change.
The Hopper App: At one point, I used the Hopper app a lot to track expected flight prices. When you start searching for flights, it’ll color-code dates based on flight prices.
On the Hopper app it will tell you if flights prices are likely to trend up or down and if you should book now or wait. You can track multiple flights at once and turn notifications on for the app to keep you updated on the best time to book.
However, again, I DON’T recommend booking with Hopper. Once you flight your destination and date, I recommend going directly to the airlines website.
Skyscanner: Skyscanner also has features that allow you to track flight prices and trends.
Once you click on your flight, you can click “get price alerts” and it will notify you if the price changes. You can also click “show whole month” to see if you can find cheaper flights on different days (if you are flexible.)
The good thing about sky scanner is that when you go to book your flight, it will take you to the airlines website to book directly.
For flight price tracking to work best, the earlier you begin your alerts the better. Once you get closer to your dates, it is less likely to find the best price; they will probably creep up once the flights get fuller.
3. Search Bare-Fare Flights
There are a lot of bare-fare airlines for domestic travels. Even with carry-on fees, the prices can be very affordable
From the US, you can fly to Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean through Spirit Airlines for affordable prices (we flew Spirt from Dallas to Cancun direct for $180 US + $60 luggage!).
Popular US Bare-fare airlines are Spirit, Allegient and Fronteir.
Europe has LOADS of bare-fare airlines as well. Once you get to Europe, you can often fly to another country for less than $100! Popular airlines are Jet Blue, Easy Jet, Ryan Air, plus country-specific airlines.
Obviously there are some downfalls to bare-fare flying (and its not usually the planes themselves.) Downfalls include:
Extra fees: Sometimes once you add luggage fees (you have to pay for a carry-on most of the time) then the bare-fare flights end up costing a similar price to regular airlines. So compare to airline prices that include carry-on to ensure you get the best bang for your buck.
Limited flight routes and destinations. For example, our beloved Little Rock airport doesn’t have Spirit airlines.
But, for someone who lives near a popular hub and can pack light, bare-fare can be a good option.
4. Look at Surrounding Dates
IF you have a flexible schedule, take advantage of it.
Once you lock in a destination, you can also adjust dates to see how the flight prices fluctuate throughout the month.
With Google Flights and Skyscanner, you can often look at prices with adjusted dates to see which days and weeks are the cheapest. 👇🏻
In general, the most inconvenient days are the cheapest. If you leave on a Tuesday or Saturday, you can often save several hundred dollars. Flying out on Friday and coming back on Sunday is often the most expensive.
If you want to save, fly Tuesday to Tuesday.
A downfall of trying to fly during the week is that you will have to use more PTO days. You usually can’t have your cake and eat it too. Ultimately, sometimes you have to choose if saving the money for a Tuesday flight is worth an extra day or two of PTO.
5. Book at the Right Time
It can be tricky deciding when the best time to book a flight is. Often, if you are too far out, the prices will likely drop at some point before the raise back up closer to the trip.
The sweet spot seems to be between 2-4 months prior to your trip seems to have some of the best deals.
Whatever you do, DON’T WAIT TOO LONG. I have regrettably waited to book a flight in hopes that the price would go down closer to the trip only to watch the prices go up!
This is ESPECIALLY true if you are trying to go to a popular place during a popular time. For example, visiting European Christmas markets. These flights will get full, and once they do you could pay a fortune for a flight.
Or, if you are trying to go to Europe during July or August; this is their PEAK season and you are going to want to book your flights even earlier probably (though I did find a reasonable flight to Barcelona in May for a July trip.)
Again, a good way to ensure you book at the right time is to try to track flight prices (though, again, they aren’t 100% reliable.)
6. Be Open to a Long Layovers or Multi-Stop Flights
In all honesty, I have outgrown this strategy because convenience now pays and I value my time more now. BUT, this is certainly something I have done before.
Flights with long layovers are typically cheaper.
If you are open to it, though, long layovers can also be a good way to see a city; my first time to see Times Square was during an 8-hour layover in NYC on my way to Ireland!
Or, sometimes, flights that have more stops are cheaper than the direct flights (or flights with one stop for those of us without an international airport 🙃.) If you don’t mind taking more time to get to your destination for a cheaper cost, this can certainly do it.
7. Companion Deals
Some airlines offer companion deals if you have a credit card through the airline. This means, if you purchase a flight, you can have someone travel with you for free (or taxes) or a small fee.
Southwest is probably the most popular one of these; its loyalty program seems to have the most benefits for the companion deal.
However, Alaska Airlines, Frontier, Delta, and American Airlines have their own version of the companion pass.
In reality, though, many of the deals require that you spend a certain amount on the card (which can be a high amount for some cards, such as the $20k-$30k requirement for American!) or acquire a certain amount of fly miles to qualify for the companion deal.
This is really, probably, only realistic for business people who rack up so many fly miles they have rewards coming out of their ears.
For us normals, this is probably not something we will be able to qualify for.
8. Travel Credit Card
If you don’t want to be tied down to one loyalty program to one airline (like me), there are several options for travel credit cards that rack up points you can redeem for travel purchases.
I own two; the Capitol One Venture and the Chase Sapphire and have booked MULTIPLE international flights using my credit card points!
Both have great sign up bonuses and acquire points quickly. I put all of my bills, groceries, gas and entertainment on the cards and pay them off every month to acquire travel points on things that I would otherwise use my debit card for.
- Perk: Great point accumulation on daily purchases. Redeeming your travel rewards is easy. Simply purchase your ticket from any site you want and then apply your rewards to that purchase to get your money back afterward!
- Disadvantage: an annual fee. However, I spend enough that the extra point accumulation is worth it.
- Perk: You get extra points when you book through their portal. I paid for 1.5 tickets to Europe with the rewards I built up! You can also cash in your points for the amount equal to your travel rewards (some cards will decrease the amount of cash you can get compared to the amount you can redeem in travel rewards)
- Disadvantage: You have to book through their portal to use your points, meaning you can’t book your plane ticket through the website of your choice (if you find the plane ticket cheaper somewhere else, sorry!). There is also an annual fee, but if you use it enough, the perks are worth the fee!
Read more on the travel credit cards I use and more!
9. The “Going” App
Though the “search anywhere” technique has definitely worked for me in the past, I have recently jumped on the “Going” (previously Scott’s Cheap Flights) train!
Whereas I used to find the time to search for flights intermittently, I now get alerts sent directly to me when the Going app finds affordable flight deals!
They do have a free version which you can go on and flight deals, but I found I didn’t really get on that much. “Out of sight, out of mind” kind of thing.
So, this year I upgraded to the paid version so I could get notifications and I love it!
I get push notifications sent to my phone and now I am considering Rio de Janeiro because flights are $575!
Sign up for “Going” to get flight deals sent to you!
Cheapest flights Recap
Flight prices can make or break a travel budget. Being strategic in getting flight prices down can take the stress of planning and budgeting down and allow for more wiggle room to do more activities.
Just know, there is not magical way to find cheap flights; it is a combination of good timing, research, patience and sometimes a little luck!
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