How to Find Cheap Flights: Tips and Tricks

Your next holiday destination has been chosen, you’ve established a budget, you’ve begun an investment plan, and you’re putting together your itinerary. Your next step in the travel planning process is to book your flights. It can be difficult to find cheap flights, and that can be one of the most challenging parts of the process.

Don’t worry; I’ve had a fair amount of experience over the years having flown over 100 times. I will share some tips and tricks with you today so you can learn how to find cheap flights.

10 Tips and Tricks for Finding Cheap Flights

1. Conduct your research early

Generally, airlines release tickets 11 months in advance. If you know you’re going to travel, start your research as soon as possible.

Make a rough estimate of your travel dates and monitor the prices. Keep an eye out for good deals by regularly checking your favorite airfare search engine or airline website.

It is also a good idea to sign up for email alerts. There are many airfare search engines and airline websites that offer this feature.

2. Browse multiple websites

When looking for flights, don’t just rely on one website. Because not every airline is represented on every website, shopping around will not only provide you with the best price, but it will also give you more choices.

3. Choose the Right Time to Book

The issue here is that there is no real ‘right time’ to book as airlines can announce sales at any time.

Nonetheless, past trends do give us some insight into the right time to book a flight. 47 days in advance is the best time to book domestic fares. International fares vary greatly in terms of the number of days you need to book in advance, ranging from 46 to 318 days. Familiarize yourself with your rights as a passenger, especially in flight delays and cancellations. You can claim British Airways delay compensation by taking help of a professional such as AirAdvisor. You may be entitled to compensation, meals, accommodation, or alternative transportation.

4. Choose a cheaper day to travel

The cheapest days to fly are generally Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday at mid-week, but I have found this theory to be inconsistent at times.

Fly on the cheapest day of the week. By selecting “Whole Month” instead of one specific date, the results will show you a calendar of the cheapest days over the span of it.

A cheapest month option is also available now, which shows the calendar for that month based on the average price of flights for that mont

5. Be Flexible

Almost everything we do in life saves money if we are flexible.

Being flexible with your travel dates and even the airport you fly into can save you money when booking flights. Consider flights with layovers or multiple stops, which could save you hundreds of dollars. If you are flexible, your flight will be cheaper.

Being flexible isn’t always worthwhile, however. For those who want more quality time in their destination, a flight with multiple stops that takes half a day longer might not be the best choice.

6. Visit the site anonymously

Booking sites and search engines store your previous search history so that they know what offers they made previously.  You can get around this by turning your internet browser incognito and to visit the site anonymously so they cannot see what you have been searching for.

As a result, you’ll get fresh prices, not those based on what you’ve already searched for. It may seem absurd that they would do something like this, but it does happen.