How To Find Cheap Flights

By Dan -  Travel Blog

 

The one thing I get asked by family and friends every time I tell them when and where I am going is… How? They seem genuinely shocked that it is possible to travel so often and so cheaply, and assume I must be going out and holding up banks to fund it.

Today I am going to let you in on my process of how to find cheap flights, and how to keep them cheap. Whether you are flying a short budget airline flight in any region or booking a round the world trip, a little extra time spent researching the flights before booking can save you hundreds of pounds.

How Much Can I Save?

First of all, here’s an idea of how much I have saved by using these tips;

UK to Dublin Return – June – Standard fares with Aer Lingus £70-100 – found and booked for £15 each

London to Rome Return – September – Standard fares £150-200 – found and booked for £80 each

UK to Barcelona Return – January – Standard fares £80-150 – found and booked for £40 each

London to Bangkok Direct Return – June – Standard fares £600-800 – found and booked for £520 each

UK to Rio de Janeiro Return – February (peak Carnival time) – Standard fares £750-1000 – found and booked for £500 each

Step 1 – When and Where?

The first thing to decide is when and where you would like to go, to get the best start possible, then the best answers would be “Anywhere and anytime” but obviously that is not usually the case.

If you are enormously flexible, then a bargain can pop up for unexpected places that you may just fall in love with. There’s no need to panic if you aren’t so flexible, just get a good idea of what potential issues may be. If you want to travel around Europe in the middle of summer, the school holidays make some prices ludicrously expensive, but if you know you’re looking at flying in the shoulder seasons then you know prices are going to be significantly less.

Another consideration to make here is peak times and festivals, for example, flying in the USA around Christmas, in Brazil around carnival or in China at new year may reduce the chances of finding a cheap more difficult, although never impossible.

Step 2 – Be Flexible

The best advice for finding a bargain flight is to be as flexible as possible, whether that is being flexible on which airports and airlines you use, to being flexible with flight times, this is the number one way to save money.

One method that can be utilised here, more for short-haul budget-airline flights is to book each leg of your journey separately. For example; if you want to do a return flight in Europe, and Ryanair are cheaper for the outbound flight but EasyJet are cheaper for the return flight, then book two separate flights with both airlines and save money.

Step 3 – Comparison Sites

The most common flight comparison sites such as SkyScanner or Kayak can be extremely useful if you have flexible dates. Use these sites first to get an idea of which airlines serve which routes and look at the typical prices graphs before moving on to the websites of the airlines.

Most of the comparison sites have functions to make your search flexible, including options to search in a whole month rather than specific dates or search using nearby cheaper airports.

Step 4 – Routes

Now that you have an idea of the route you want to take and roughly when you want to go, use the comparison sites and tools such as Google Flights to find out the cheapest days and times to fly, certain airlines may only serve a particular route on certain days of the week and may be much cheaper than the others.

For a flight from Bali, Indonesia to Cairns, Australia, the typical flight is to change in Singapore or Kuala Lumpur, but by using these tools you can see that Jetstar fly the route direct three times per week and can actually be cheaper than an indirect flight.

A consideration for an indirect long haul flight would be if it would make sense to book each leg individually with multiple airlines. If a flight from Europe to Australia is more expensive than two separate flights that meet at a point in Asia, then perhaps you could use that saving to spend a couple of nights seeing Singapore.

Step 5 – Airline Websites

Now that you know which airline is cheapest and when you are going, go and hunt around on the airlines website, look when their cheapest flights are for that route and if they’re three months from now, consider if that’s that best option, to book three months in advance.

ALL airlines have sales, or at least in my experience of dozens of airlines, I am yet to come across one that doesn’t have sales. A budget airline like Ryanair may have a couple of sales each month for different routes, whereas a carrier such as Lufthansa may put flights on sale a certain number of months in advance of departure. A key way to keep track of this is to sign up to the airline’s mailing lists, this way you can be sure they’ll let you know when they have a sale on.

Step 6 – Fare Finders

A fairly recent addition to mainly budget airline websites but one that has a lot of cost saving potential is fare finders, these tools which can be found on the airline website generally let you enter very basic information and they find you the cheapest flights. An example of this is the Ryanair version of this tool in which you can enter as little as departure and a budget and it will find you where it can take you for that amount. They also have many other options to filter by dates and journey length, but it is one of the easiest ways to find a bargain flight.

Recently, a budget airline had a sale on, and by using the Fare Finder, flights around Europe could be had for as little as £5 each, with no extra fees… Now that’s what I call a good deal.

Step 7 – Wait or Book Now?

The final decision to be made is whether now is the best time to book the flights you want. There is no fixed rule on whether flight prices will increase or decrease over time, but one thing you can be sure of, is that last minute flights are not cheap. In general booking well in advance will be more likely to save you money, but it depends entirely on the airline, so getting familiar with their sales could be the key to deciding when is the best time to book.

In general, flights schedules are released by airlines roughly 11 months before departure, although budget airlines tend to be less than this. Prices usually start at a medium level and fluctuate, before reducing during sales and increasing in the weeks or months just before departure.

Check the prices for every month of your route, if you want to fly in 8 months time, but the cheapest flight times are between 3 and 6 months from today, consider waiting and you will likely save.

Step 8 – Extras – What Do I Actually Need?

This is more applicable to small and budget airlines than the big carriers, budget airlines rely on making money by the extras that you purchase on top of the standard fare.

In Europe, for a short haul flight, putting a piece of luggage in the hold can cost as much the flight fare. So consider what you actually need carefully, if you are only travelling for a few days, will all your luggage fit in a carry on, the size of carry on luggage permitted vary by airline, but the minimum dimensions are usually 50cm x 40cm x 20cm, which is more than enough for a few days clothes.

Allocated seating is another extra that is usually purchasable by the airlines, consider whether you are really that interested in picking your own seat or whether you would rather let them allocate you a free seat on check in and save your money for when you get there. A decider for this could be if you are travelling with children, in which case, even though most airlines would likely sit you together automatically, you may be better off by purchasing seats to be sure.

The final extra, that most definitely does not need paying is credit card charges, many airlines have fees depending on which type of credit or debit card you use, but the general rule is that debit cards are normally free to use and credit cards carry a charge somewhere between 1-5%.

Step 9 – Cash–back and Frequent Flyers

On to the final step before booking them now, decide if you will save or gain more by using a cash-back website to book the flights and enrol to frequent flyer programs if you are likely to use the airline more than once.

Prominent cash-back websites such as Quidco are the place to check to see if cash-back is possible with the airline you are using. Further to this, some debit or credit cards offer extra miles or cash-back on purchases so if you have it, use it.

9 Steps And Finished

So there we have it, the go-to guide for finding cheaper flights, its the method I use every time i travel, so I know it works. If it works for you, pass this guide on to your friends to help them travel further as well, because travel broadens the mind you know.

I hope you found the information useful, go ahead and get looking, I’m positive you’ll find flights cheaper than you thought. Share this post with your friends to help them travel cheaper too…