When it comes to traveling, one of the biggest reasons people avoid it is because they think it costs too much money. Even trains these days seem to be getting pretty pricey and flights can be more expensive than ever within the US. However, this doesn’t mean that flights are always expensive; you just need to know the tricks of the trade in order to find good deals. It’s not easy, but it’s certainly not impossible. Let’s talk about some of the easiest ways you can save money on your flights.
Be Flexible
This is by far the most important thing when it comes to finding cheap flights. This can mean being flexible on your dates, or even the time of day you’re flying from, and also being open to using other airports that may not be as convenient.
Ultimately, if you’re looking to fly on a specific date at a specific time and out of a particular airport, you’re never going to get a good deal because you’re just going to have to pay the price it quotes you.
Use The Right Tools
Most people tend to just check Expedia or Orbitz for flights and be done with it. While these are fine options, they’re certainly not the best tools out there. Using Google Flights is great because it lists everything, including budget airlines, but also if you’re looking to just go anywhere you can search from a particular airport or region to ‘anywhere’ and look at a map and see how much the prices are to each place you may be interested in.
Another great tool is ITA Matrix. This tool allows you to look at a calendar of prices so you can see which days are cheaper in the simplest way possible. You can also specific everything from currency, how many stops, what airline, time of day, etc. It makes finding your flights easier than ever.
Check Budget Airlines
Another great option is to go directly to the budget airlines websites and check out if they have any special prices that may not be picked up by the mainstream search engines. This is always a decent option to try and get cheap flights on say Southwest or JetBlue.
Utilize Reward Credit Cards
One of the best ways to get great value travel is to get yourself some of the reward credit cards out there where you can redeem points on flights or get cashback. These credit cards are plentiful and you can get so much out of them so it’s worth looking into whether some of them would work for you.
Finding cheap flights doesn’t have to be a huge burden, it just means you need to implement some new techniques into your flight searching. If you do that, you’re bound to find some better fares and get to travel more frequently.
This article is so outdated. Southwest is no longer a discount airline, and hasn’t been for many years. What they are is a good marketing airline that has people still believing they are cheaper. The airlines ALL charge the same price, it’s just a matter of availability that determines the price. In many cases, using budget carriers, e.g. Spirit etc.. end up costing more because they charge for everything, including carry on baggage. Current strategy has Tues & Wed as least expensive travel days, and booking way in advance is often detrimental because yield is not a concern 3 weeks or more in advance.