The Most Expensive Part Of Traveling Will Probably Be Getting There.
Don’t be intimidated by the initial price you see when looking at airfare. Prices will fluctuate based on days, times, and sites you use in order to book. There are different options in order to save money when purchasing flights. As time is money, finding the best prices requires a little bit of patience and a few days or weeks of research to find a comfortable price. First, you have to find the right site that you feel comfortable navigating. There are an infinite amount of websites you can choose from including platform sites that compile varying prices. Personally, we book through Orbitz or Kiwi because for the past five years they’ve provided the lowest prices and greatest service. But we always start research with Skyscanner. It's the greatest tool and amazingly fun to work with. There's always a section on the homepage where you can select everywhere as your destination and find the cheapest flights from your departing city.
Here’s our go to list of sites when comparing flights.
* Sites are the sites that we use most often to find our flights
Helpful Hints When Searching
Researching at different times of the day can fluctuate the price.
Studies show that Tuesdays around 3:00 pm Eastern is the best time to buy tickets. Early mornings might show discounted seats that the airlines have released for a limited time. There's also the possibility of finding last minute discounts the day of a flight as airlines try to fill empty seats. The airline market is outrageously complex and sneaky if we might add. They match the highest prices to when the public is most likely to shop and fly so be aware.
Flying on different days of the week offer different prices.
Once you’ve found a site to work with, you want to find a starting price or reference price to know how expensive it could be if you were to fly at peak time of the week (Friday, Saturday, Monday) or year (national holidays such as Thanksgiving and Christmas). This will give you a sense of the highest price so that you can begin searching for the lowest. We've found that Wednesdays are the best day to fly. Weekends are more expensive to fly simply because of demand so they recommend earlier in the week rather than later. Beware of holidays, both for the departure and arrival cities which will cause the prices to rise.
Search incognito for accurate prices.
Cheap flights will "disappear" or fluctuate when you repeatedly search for a specific route. This may not be truthful. Because of the stored cache and cookies in your web browser, sites are able to recognize your desired route and might list that there are only a few seats left in order to encourage you to buy. A way to avoid this, is to search incognito. You can do this buy opening up your browser and holding down they keys ctrl shift N simultaneously (it's command N if you have a Mac). You can also locate the option to search incognito under the drop down menu on the right of the search bar. This will allow you to peruse the internet and find the best deals.
Searching with a VPN can bring about different prices.
Using a virtual private network (VPN) allows you to not only have a secure network for online banking and using personal information on the web, but it allows you to change your online location. This means that you can search websites as if you were in Germany when really you’re in California. Because of this you’ll get access to flights that may not be offered normally to people who are searching from the US. We haven’t figured out yet which country is the cheapest to search as, but we’re still figuring out how this works and we’ll keep it updated when we can.
Roundtrips are cheaper than one ways (sometimes).
If you’re looking for a one way ticket it can be beneficial to also look and see how much a round trip would be. Often times you’ll find that if you make the return date for way in the future you will come across cheaper tickets. You can book this option and simply not take the return flight or you can book it so that maybe you’ll get to take advantage of the return flight.
Explore surrounding destinations.
If you keep finding that it's expensive to fly direct into a city it could be worthwhile to explore surrounding airports. Especially in Europe where destinations are close together, you can find cheaper transportation once you get off the plane and so it’s reasonable to fly into varying destinations.
What to expect with your searches
When using a site to search for flights, you'll be required to fill out initial travel information (departure/arrival city, dates, passengers, etc.) after which, your search will turn up a comparison of different flights that match your specifications. The searches are usually listed lowest to highest. After finding a price that looks affordable, click on the listed flight to view the travel details. This includes departure/arrival times, layovers and transfers which are good pieces of information to consider when picking between flights. Knowing your comfort level will allow you to know if a 12hr layover is worth it.
Financial comfort
The hard part of actually committing to a flight comes down to your research and comfort with the price. Most often we look for tickets checking prices everyday for a couple days, maybe even weeks. There are options where you can sign up and get updates as to when flights you’re looking at drop to the price your comfortable with. Compare sites and go with your gut. If you find a price that’s significantly cheaper than the most expensive day (you can search the whole month on Skyscanner to get a sense of the highest and the lowest prices) than I would say you’re good to buy.
Budget Airlines
Ryanair & Easyjet- This is an inexpensive European flight company. They’re known for being very cheap, only charging anywhere from $10-$80 to fly between countries. Great company for backpackers but keep in mind they need to make their money somehow (checked bags, printing boarding passes, name change, snacks etc.). The new age of budget travel is trading in comfort for a lower cost.
Spirit, Southwest, & Frontier- This is North America's version of budget airlines. They’re leading the way in advertisement for low fares within the states (and the Caribbean) without having to sacrifice some of the comforts we’re all accustomed to as long time airline patrons. They still allow for some checked bags and provide complementary beverages.
Wow- An Icelandic company that is breaking down the long time expectation of having to drop thousands to get from the states to Europe. They’ve also worked towards showcasing the beauty of Iceland by offering extended layovers in Iceland at no extra cost.
Air Asia, Air Asia X, Nok Air, Tiger Airways, Spice Jet, Peach, Scoot, Jetstar, & Indigo- These are Southeast Asia's 9 most popular and inexpensive Airline companies. They’re known for being very cheap, only charging anywhere from $10-$80 to fly between countries. Great companies for backpackers but keep in mind they need to make their money somehow (checked bags, printing boarding passes, name change, snacks etc.). The new age of budget travel is trading in comfort for a lower cost.
Jetstar- This is pretty much THE budget airline for Australia and New Zealand. They also fly to many Asian countries from here as well, so its a great budget airline you can travel almost half of the world with. Great company for backpackers but keep in mind they need to make their money somehow (checked bags, printing boarding passes, name change, snacks etc.). The new age of budget travel is trading in comfort for a lower cost.
LATAM, Avianca & Viva Colombia- These are the most used and cheapest airlines in the skies in South America. Great companies for backpackers but keep in mind they need to make their money somehow (checked bags, printing boarding passes, name change, snacks etc.). The new age of budget travel is trading in comfort for a lower cost. If you need to cheap flight To/From South America and the USA, Spirit & Santa Barbara Airlines offer regular cheap fares; usually out of Florida or Texas.
Shoestring options
We’ve yet to try this option, but we’ve heard of people flying with couriers such as Fedex. There are possibilities to get international flights for a smaller fee if you trade your services of loading and unpacking the plane for a ticket.
Some Other Helpful Links
Skyscanner: This is a really great website that ideally works if you don’t have a specific destination. It provides deals of the week to different places but isn’t the most helpful when looking for a certain destination.
Secret Flying: One of the coolest websites that we've uncovered recently. It's entirely dedicated to finding "mistake fares" and unbelievable flight deals.
Airfare Watchdog: Another great site dedicated to finding extraordinary flash deals. It's geared more specifically for travelers of the USA.
Yapta: This website compares different prices on airlines and works toward providing customers with vouchers and credit if prices drop after you’ve already purchased your ticket. There are of course loop holes and it doesn’t apply for all airlines but it can be worth checking out for international flights.
Kayak Explore: Using this site, you can enter in your departure city as well as a rough estimation of the time you will be traveling (month or season) and a map will appear with estimated costs of cities you can fly into. This allows you to see if you're final destinations is more expensive than a neighboring city.
