The Best Ways to Get Cheap Flights

Finding affordable airfares is one of the biggest obstacles when planning a trip on a budget. The flight costs can easily consume a large chunk of your total expenses but securing a good deal on flights allows you to divert more of your trip funds towards the fun aspects – activities, food, hotels and more.

In these difficult economic times, we want to help you maximise savings on travel so you can keep exploring the world without breaking the bank. After years of regular travel, we’ve discovered some of the best flight booking hacks to keep prices low. Read on for our top tips to land cheap flights and make your travel budget go that little bit further.

Some of the sections in this guide contain affiliate links which, at no extra cost to you, provide us with a small commission. We only recommend services we’ve visited used and all opinions expressed here are our own.

Stay Flexible

This is the most important tip in this guide for one reason. This alone will have the greatest impact on your cost savings and could potentially save you hundreds.

Having flexibility with your travel dates and destinations is key to snagging the cheapest fares. While it’s nice to have concrete plans, being flexible gives you much more freedom when searching for deals. Avoid booking popular routes during peak times like school holidays or long weekends when demand and prices surge.

In addition, browse a few different destination options that intrigue you as having options on both dates and location will give you a huge range of options when trying to save some cash. Use tools like Google Flights to compare prices across whole months worth of dates. You may be surprised at the savings you can achieve by shifting your trip back a week or extending it by a few days. Flexibility lets you jump on the best deals when you spot them.

Use Google Flights’ Date Grid

Tying into the point above, Google Flights has an incredibly useful date grid feature that visualises the cheapest date combinations for your potential trip. Rather than manually needing to amend dates and cross reference yourself, the date grid gives you a handy table that clearly displays the best prices on outbound and inbound flights.

Often you can save significantly by adding or subtracting a few days from your original plan. The date grid simplifies the process of finding these savings opportunities. Don’t limit yourself to set dates before searching. Let this tool reveal where the deals are, then plan your trip around that for maximum savings.

Zooming out even further, Google flights has a price graph that lets you analyse the pricing trends over time to see when the cheapest time of year to visit your destination is.

Cross Reference with Other Tools

While Google Flights is our go-to for its intuitive interface and great comparison capabilities, we always cross-reference the options it shows us against similar flight search platforms. Sites like Skyscanner, Kayak, Trip.com and more allow you to enter the exact same route on their platforms to compare.

On certain occasions, we’ve managed to find slightly better deals on competing sites for the same exact itinerary Google showed us. It definitely pays to check around, as fares can fluctuate between tools. Set up price notifications across various platforms to increase your chances of snagging a deal the moment it pops up.

Use Incognito Mode and Clear your Cookies

Have you ever noticed flight prices steadily increasing every time you revisit a booking site? These sites can track your activity, including flight searches, and will often raise prices to pressure you into pulling the trigger. You may see significant price jumps on the same route after a few visits.

Combat this by frequently clearing your browser cookies and browsing in incognito or private mode windows when searching flights. This isn’t bulletproof but does reduce the chance of the sites identifying and targeting your activity. It takes a tiny bit more effort than regular browsing and can prevent unnecessary costs.

Make Use of Travel Credit Cards

Signing up for certain travel rewards credit cards gives you access to serious perks that can add up to big savings over times. Look for ones that offer airline miles, cash back bonuses, statement credits, lounge access and more. Building your points through routine spending can earn you significantly reduced and even free flights in some cases.

We save hundreds each year by paying for all expenses with airline mile rewards cards with the sign up bonuses alone often cover a large chunk of flight costs. However, make sure you do your research as the top cards can come with high annual fees. Crunch the numbers to see if the perks outweigh the costs for your particular situation.

Consider Layovers

Flights with layovers can often be cheaper than direct routes between the same origin and destination. Adding a connection can mean considerable savings, allowing you to opt for a longer trip. Layovers obviously do add travel time, but we’ve had great experiences enjoying an extended stopover thanks to a cheap connection. We recently connected through Brussels on the way back from Mexico and spent the day exploring the city instead of being stuck inside the airport.

You can even intentionally book “hidden city” flights where your intended destination is the layover point. This risky move lets you snag amazing fares by skipping the second leg of the journey. Research carefully before attempting this and know the risks involved as some airlines are taking preventative measures against this kind of travel.

Wrapping Up

Using flexibility, handy comparison tools, private browsing, travel rewards cards, and openness to layovers are just some of the many ways to keep your flight costs down. We hope these budget airfare tips help you stretch your travel budget that little bit further.

Let us know any if you come across any other money saving hacks you discover as you search for cheap flights. Safe travels!