I absolutely love to travel but I would much rather spend money once I am there than on the flight there. That being said, I would rather spend a little extra change for a strong name brand than a penny pond jumper. Over the years of travel and researching, I have stumbled onto some awesome ways to find cheap flights. Here is how:
Subscribe to free airline deal e-mails
This feels like such a “duh” moment, but hear me out. Yes, their deals are awesome and helpful if you are able to book them in time. BUT, that isn’t exactly why you should subscribe to these. You subscribe so that you can start to create an expectation of what low prices look like for various destinations. This is also helpful to see what areas have deals at some point.
This is a long game approach and less likely to be super helpful to start. Here are the two that I subscribe to:
If you are based in the Salt Lake area, I highly recommend Flights From Home. I pay for the premium (which means I get the emails first) but I don’t really think that is necessary if you are in it for the long game. They also have an instagram that is a solid follow!
Scott’s Cheap Flights is open to all locations and, like Flights From Home, has both a premium and free options. I only subscribe to the free service. Their emails are scarce but their deals are pretty solid.
Be flexible
I have learned through some hard lessons that the best ways to find cheap airfare is to be flexible. Often, I start with an ideal location and do some research around best times to visit that destination. When searching if you have some flexibility around when you want to go you have more opportunity to find a good deal. When you have strict dates you are at the will of the airlines.
Save ahead of time
I love spontaneous but planned trips and am able to do more of those because my husband and I have an ongoing savings plan for our travels. Depending on what else is going on in our lives impacts how much we are able to save BUT the important part is when you save ahead of time you can afford the flight when it drops in price.
Google Flights
I feel like this is super obvious but I talk to so many people who don’t know the power of Google Flights. It will search about every airline there is except SouthWest (good to keep in mind if you are flying around the west coast).
Other great things about Google Flights are:
They will show if the prices are low to typical to high for your dates at the time of your search.
Great for flexible date searching using the “Date Grid” and “Price Graph”.
Can search with how many bags you want to take.
NO POP UPS!
and the little known fact
You can track your flights so that Google will email you when the price raises and drops!
Between these ways you are destined to come across some great deals. I will write more on Google Flights & how to budget for your trips at a later time. Best of luck airfare shopping!
Updated 1/2020 to include related content.
Related content: A Complete Guide to Google Flights
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