Travel is too expensive.
This complaint is universal because it’s generally true. The costs of getting on a plane, renting a car, staying in a hotel, and buying food make travel feel unattainable for many.
But what if the largest expense (flights) were cheap?
What if you bragged about how much you paid for flights instead of cringing when you looked at your bank account?
How would that change how you view travel?
Finding cheap flights is possible. You can save thousands of dollars on flights by following the steps in this guide.
And no, this won’t involve you stowing away in the bottom of a cargo plane. Cheap flights can be found on budget carriers & top-rated airlines like Emirates, Delta, and ANA.
When I bought a flight for $380 roundtrip to Rome, no one could believe me. They thought I was lying.
Nope, I just knew the tricks. Now, it’s your turn to learn.
Here’s a step-by-step framework for how to save on flights.
How to save on flights: Do everything possible to be flexible
Spoiler: cheap flights are out there. We see them every day.
One could argue it’s more difficult to have the flexibility to actually get on those flights than it is to find them.
When I found $380 roundtrip flights to Europe, it wasn’t during peak summer, it was October (which is way better because Italy gets HOT!)
My schedule flexibility allowed me to travel outside of conventional travel dates (summer, Christmas, Thanksgiving, etc.)
If you can’t flex a few months, even being able to flex a few days can help you save on flights. Flying Tuesday – Tuesday instead of Sunday – Sunday can sometimes save you hundreds per ticket. The best days to score off-peak cheaper flights are Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Saturdays.
I zoomed in on India and found flights to Mumbai for only $649 on a highly-rated airline.
Over 40 hours of flying for only $649?
You’re paying about $16/hr to fly across the world, not bad at all.
Finding the cheapest possible flights for your dates with Google
Ok, so maybe you don’t have unlimited flexibility.
No problem. Google Flights can help us.
Go to Google Flights then click “Explore” on the top left of your screen.
Choose between flexible and specific dates:
You can select a one-week trip in December, or can put in specific dates.
Say your children’s spring break is the first week of April:
Click, “Done,” and you’ll see a map of flight options all over the world for those dates.
I noticed flights to Paris during those dates for only $521 roundtrip. That’s not the greatest deal in history, but it’s definitely lower than average.
As you can see, if you have less flexibility, Google Flights has some incredible features to search by month or by specific dates.
Bonus: You can sign up for fare alerts on Google Flights and Kayak, or on specific airline websites. These alerts will let you know when prices drop for specific routes you’re interested in.
The important thing: We weren’t searching for a specific destination—we put in our home airport and looked at the cheapest places to go in the world.
For those spring dates, the cheapest place to get to in Europe was Paris.
Remember: Go where the deals take you.
How to save on flights: Don’t be locked into one location
Maybe you really wanted to go to Barcelona during your children’s spring break. That’s understandable.
But what if it was $200/person cheaper to fly to Paris?
Paris is (1) amazing, and (2) not far from Barcelona!
As I mentioned before, go where the deals take you.
If you really want to go to Europe and you have a tight budget, I can guarantee you’ll be amazed by any city you go to.
However, it gets better. If you love cheap flights, you’ll adore Europe.
They have flight prices you won’t believe.
So if you really don’t care about Paris, you can still fly there and then hop over to Barcelona for the price of a large latte at JFK.
The more open you are to new destinations, the better deals you’ll be able to find. Get creative.
You need to be open to other airports than your home airport- if you live in Philidephia, you might save hundreds by flying out of one of the three airports in New York City – and you can take a train there!
This strategy works on both ends of your trip – the larger the airports the better a deal you will likely get.
If you live in Naples, FL and want to go to Monaco, it will be significantly more expensive to fly from Fort Myers airport to Nice, France than it would be to fly from Miami to Milan (nonstop) and take a train to Monaco.
Have fun playing around with Google Maps!
How to know if your flight is a good deal
Ok, you found a flight you want to get. All this talk of cheap flights, but what defines cheap?
If you’re a normal person and don’t spend all day looking at flights like me, you may not have a great baseline of what a good deal is.
The team at JGOOT has shared on Instagram their $30/$60/$90 rule to help determine if you’re getting a good deal or not.
The rule: Pay no more than…
- $30/hr in economy.
- $60/hr in premium economy.
- $90/hr in business/first class.
Let’s see how good a deal we’re getting with the Chicago – Paris flight we found.
Total flight time (roundtrip) = ~22 hours.
Cash price = $521.
$521 / 22 = $23.68 per flight hour.
This is well below the $30/hr benchmark, so we can consider it a good deal.
When booking economy flights, aim to never pay more than $30/hr.
How to save on flights: Mitigate risk with the 24-hour rule
You found the flight you want, it passes the $30/$60/$90 rule, and it works with your schedule, but you still have some hesitations?
Book it.
US law requires airlines to offer either a 24-hour refund policy or the option to lock in a flight at the current price.
So as long as you’re at least seven days out from travel, you can cancel for free within 24 hours.
Important note: This may not work through OTAs (Expedia, Kayak, Skyscanner, etc.) which is a great argument for always booking directly with the airline.
Even more ways to find cheap flights
Book at the right time
Research suggests that booking domestic flights one to three months in advance and international two to eight months in advance is best.
This further emphasizes setting up fare alerts on Google Flights or Kayak—you can get acquainted with typical prices and purchase when you see prices go down.
The earlier you start searching, the more chance you’ll catch a large price drop.
Search with OTAs, book direct
Kayak, Skyscanner, Momondo, and similar OTAs are great for finding flight deals. However, it is typically best to book directly with an airline.
It’s quite possible booking directly with the airline will give you the best price. Also, you will have more control over your reservation when booking directly with an airline—there won’t be a third party involved.
Real-life (hotel) example: I was staying at a beautiful (almost empty) resort in the Carribean. I asked to be upgraded to a villa because there were many open, but the manager told me she would, but couldn’t, because I had booked through Expedia. They couldn’t change anything about my reservation.
Clear your cache and use a VPN
You’ve probably noticed that when you search 50 times for that flight you want to buy to the Maldives, the price mysteriously goes up.
Google is tracking your searches.
If you clear your cache before searching for flights and use a VPN to encrypt your data, this is less likely to happen.
I can’t guarantee success with this strategy, but it certainly won’t hurt, and is a good internet safety practice regardless.
Advanced strategies for how to save on flights
Mistake fares
Every once in a while, we find mistake fares. These are flight deals so unbelievable, they’re only possible through airlines making serious errors such as listing an $860 flight for $86, accidentally.
Here’s an example:
This is an unbelievable price: $4.50/hr to fly to Europe.
Realistically, you won’t find these on your own, unless you’re searching hours per day.
Signing up for Dollar Flight Club will be the best way to be quickly notified when mistake fares are found.
Points and miles
There’s only one thing better than cheap flights: free flights.
That’s possible using credit card and airline points and miles.
Of course, you always need to spend money to earn points, so it’s not always accurate to call them “free” flights, but it’s quite close to free.
You can earn large amounts of credit card points from credit card sign-up bonuses.
I earned 80,000 points from a credit card sign-up bonus and then used those points to completely cover roundtrip flights for my wife and I to go to Europe last fall.
There are more advanced strategies where you can transfer points to airline loyalty programs and book incredible deals with their partner airlines.
For example, I recently found a deal to book Qatar Qsuites (one-way) for 79,000 points (approximately $800 worth of points) + $7.60 for a flight that costs over $8,000.
There are limitless possibilities in the world of points and miles to save thousands on airfare.
Conclusion: The only rule is there are no rules
At the end of the day, there’s no magic or science to finding the best flights.
Yes, Tuesday is more likely. Yes, Thanksgiving is less likely.
Yes, there are lots of great practices to follow, but you simply never know what will show up.
Over the years, I’ve seen deals I couldn’t believe were possible during peak dates with top-rated airlines.
If you use the strategies for finding deals on Google Flights and Kayak and search daily, I can assure you you’ll find some incredible deals.
If you learn to master points and miles, you can also get highly reduced or free flights.
If all of this sounds too burdensome and you want a better solution, join Dollar Flight Club today to get the best deals from your home airport sent to your inbox daily.
No scanning, no searching, nothing to do except wait for us to send you the deals. Never miss another cheap flight.
Get ready to save thousands on airfare, you now have all the tools you need.
