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Are you struggling financially, but want to travel? Overwhelmed by questions such as where to book cheap flights or where to look for the best travel deals? Do not worry. I can assure you that nowadays travel is very affordable and doesn’t require spending a lot of money or hard skills finding tickets yourself. Travel hacks help a lot with that. If you have a desire to travel, learn these helpful travel tips and choose your happy place to travel to NOW.

 

Here, I’ve created a list of 15 tips on how to find the best deals and cheap airfare, so you can start traveling today!

How to Find Cheap Flights:15 Best Tips

1. Be Flexible With Your Dates and Time

The first and most important tip is YOU HAVE TO BE FLEXIBLE with the dates.

 

Flying on the weekend or during the holiday season will cost you much more than flying during the week. If it is a high season, a holiday, or from Friday to Sunday, avoid flying this time if possible.

 

For example, I fly a lot during a week, and a trip for 2 or 3 days round-trip can cost me up to $100 max in the USA. So something between $70-100. Not bad, right?! But, if I flew over the weekend, the cost of the tickets was doubled or tripled.

 

Also, consider early flights, as not many people want to wake up that early. There is a  good chance that those tickets are not that popular and will have cheaper prices as well.

 

Keep in mind that flying in a season is always super expensive, or if there are major festivals, concerts going on, etc. In this case, it is always better to fly off-season.

 

Believe me, the difference of only one day can change the situation completely and save you a lot of money.

 

Always try to be flexible and you will get the best deals out where possible.

2. Be Flexible With the Destinations

The best tip to find cheap tickets is just to look everywhere, especially if you do not know where you want to go. Skyscanner is the best site to do that. You simply need to specify the time frame you want to depart, like the exact days, or even better, just search for a whole month and use the “Everywhere” option to search for all tickets.

 

I love this option to search everywhere as sometimes I just do not know where I want to go and the search helps me a lot to make the right decision as it easily allows me to compare destinations and prices at the same time. This can also work best for spontaneous last-minute travel.

 

Sometimes you can find a good deal, but do not feel like you want to go to that place. But what if that vacation can become the best in your life? That is how it usually happens to me. All spontaneous things end up being good.

 

Check out this blog post on how to find cheap international flights.

3. Always Check Airlines Websites Directly

When I find a good deal with a third party, I try to check the airline’s website directly as well. Have you done that before? If not, you might be missing some good savings out there.

 

I noticed that some airlines offer better prices and better cancellations or change policies sometimes. So it never hurt to check the airline website directly to see if they will have better deals.

4. Book With The Right Agency

Some third-party companies might give you a good price for the ticket itself, but charge you a lot of extra fees. Sometimes those extra fees are not visible to you, and you only see them after you pay. A good example is Justfly, which charges the booking fee and does not show you that until the final price.

 

Also, take note that some of the fees are non-refundable. That is why it is very important to pick the right agency right away.

 

The best site to find cheap flights with flexible dates is Skyscanner. I always buy my tickets through that site, but check a few more sites (e.g. Hopper, Expedia, Kiwi) as well for comparison. Hopper has a good feature that sends you a notification if the price drops or gets higher for the destination or hotel you were searching for before.

5. Search Tickets With Layovers

Direct flights are usually more expensive than flights with layovers. Especially if you fly internationally. If you are flexible with your time, try to look for tickets with stopovers. It will save you money, and sometimes you can even see a new place while you have a long layover.

 

For example, I know if you are flying through Turkey, they usually have pretty long layovers, and if your layover is more than 6 hours, you can take a tour of the city which they offer for free. Not bad either.

 

Also, check flying to nearby airports. I did it a few times and it was cheaper than flying to the main airports.  Getting from one airport to another can take some time (an hour or more), and you can miss your flight if the layover is short. So, If you decide to go that route, just make sure you have extra time.

6. Buy Tickets Directly At the Airport

If you do not mind driving to the airport and waiting in line to buy tickets that way, just try it out. Buying tickets directly at the airport is a good idea if you do not want to pay extra fees. A good example is Spirit or Frontier where you can save around $23 or more per ticket.

 

The downside is that there are no guarantees that if you buy tickets directly with an agent, it will cost you less as it depends on the destination and type of ticket. But if you are lucky, you will definitely get a lower ticket price as you won’t have to pay those extra fees we get charged when we buy online.

 

7. Signup For Newsletters

This method is not good for me as I usually do not plan in advance and can’t keep an eye on such emails, but if you like planning way ahead, this must be a very good option for YOU.

 

Ticket prices change every minute, you know that, right? And the main problem is that you can’t spend the whole day checking the websites over and over to see if the prices have changed already. That’s where the Hopper price change alert can be useful.

 

So signing up for a newsletter can save you time and help you to buy the best ticket at a good price.

8. Buy Round Tickets as Two-Way Tickets Separately

I used this trick for my flights to Asia, which worked great. Because I booked one ticket from Chicago to Singapore and another from Bangkok to Chicago, it only cost me $700 with the same airline. Which was a perfect deal instead of searching for tickets from Chicago to Singapore to Bangkok and to Chicago that would cost me way more.

 

If you have multiple destinations and or a round-trip, check the option to buy them as separate one-way tickets, as it might be cheaper.

 

9. Use Your Credit Travel Cards

If you do not have a travel credit card yet, you are missing a lot of opportunities to save on tickets and accommodations, or even use all of that for free.

 

I buy all my tickets with credit cards as I get points and discounts if I buy with them directly. Most times I had to fly very cheap or totally FREE, thanks to my points.

 

Check out  6 Best Travel Credit Cards 2023

10. Buy Each Ticket Separately for Every Person

If you are flying with somebody, do not buy all the tickets together as you will end up paying more. Sometimes it cannot be very convenient as you might think you need to do all the work twice, but just compare prices, and you will see if it is worth it or not.

 

Seats together usually cost more in general if you look them up at the same time, so most likely if you buy tickets at the same time separately, you will get the next seat to each other anyway if it is available.

 

Also, if for some reason you bought one ticket, and you saw the available seat next to you, but after you tried to buy another ticket it was not available anymore, do not give up. Just use a different browser and try to search a few times. Sometimes it can change very quickly, like prices. Or just ask another person to buy the ticket at the same time. So you are both will make sure you got it right.

11. Use a VPN to Search for Tickets

You might have heard about this trick already or you might not. Sometimes you can get a good price by using a VPN in a country with lower incomes. For example, if you search for tickets from the USA to Russia, use the VPN, and instead of using your country, which is the USA, use Russia. So the search engine will think that you are located in Russia and can show you better prices. Note, that it will only work for some destinations, but not all.

 

12. Book Tickets With a Low-Cost Airlines Directly

Some of the low-cost airlines do not post their tickets on third-party sites, so you will never know if they offer the best prices until you go to their website directly. And not everybody knows what those airlines actually are. For example, I am not that familiar with European low-costers as I just recently started my Europe travel experience and didn’t fly a lot with them.

 

Here is a list of low-cost airlines for your convenience. So you can save it and check every time in the future when you are looking for tickets.

 

The full list of low-cost airlines can be found here.

13. Travel With a Backpack or Buy Luggage Online to Save On the Ticket Price

It is not a surprise that paying for luggage can be very costly. Simple check-in luggage in the US costs between $25-$50 or even more. To avoid that extra charge, try to travel as light as possible with only your backpack, so you won’t have to check your luggage.

 

Or if you actually have to take bigger luggage, pay for it in advance online. If you skip that step, you will end up paying much more at the airport, which will be very sad.

 

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Tips for traveling cheap

14. Use Membership Discounted Price

Some third-party agencies offer promotional prices if you buy a prime membership with them. They usually have a 30-day free trial, so in any case, you do not lose money if you decide to cancel. You will get the promotional ticket value + won’t be charged a penny if you decide not to continue paying for Prime membership. A few of the third-party example websites are edreams.net and exploretrip.com. I personally used both, and they have a free trial prime membership with promotional prices.

15. Use Your Student Status As an Advantage

Some third-party websites offer student discounts. One of the good examples is StudentUniverse. For example, the price of a one-way ticket from Dublin to Chicago with a student discount costs $373, and for adults, it’s $513. Pretty good price, right?! In such moments I regret that I am not a student anymore. So, do not miss this chance to save if you are eligible.

 

Final Thoughts

Finding cheap flights is very possible if you can spend some time doing that. These best  15 tips on finding cheap flights can help you save a lot of money and help you travel more.

 

I think traveling should be a part of everybody’s life as it is an amazing experience to see the world and learn the best of ourselves.

 

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