How to find cheap flights
/One of the most frequently asked questions I get is “how the hell do you fly to all these places” not necessarily in those words but I like to add my own character into your questions. And the answer is: I’m so cheap and thrifty mixed with a little bit of luck, flight subscriptions, and constant vigilance.
My biggest trick is to ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS have your browser in incognito or private mode when searching for flights, this is because airline sites use cookies to see what you’ve been searching for and how often you visit the site. You can play with this yourself if you don’t believe me, but if you search a flight, lets say, to New York right now, in a couple hours the price will change and it will continually go up and down a few dollars, this is to freak you out into buying a ticket sooner than you need to.
The cheapest time to buy your ticket is six weeks before your flight on a Tuesday or Wednesday. Also, picking the day you leave is important too. If you want to go for the weekend try leaving Thursday night late and coming back early Monday morning, the prices change dramatically from your typical Friday morning and Sunday night flights.
I subscribe to Scott’s Cheap flights. I get daily notices of mistake fares and really low prices on airfare. This is a great site but you do have to pay for it so my advice to you is find another friend who likes to travel and go in on the subscription together and forward the emails to the other. Another thing I don’t love is that these flights are for very specific times and you have to book them almost instantly after receiving the email. Sometimes I don’t always have the money to drop a couple hundred dollars on a flight to Colombia and the pressure is real. Not that long ago my friend sent me an email for a $300 flight to New Zealand. I was on it, but turns out you had to go for an entire month to get that price, which I’m not against but the timing was impossible. Another time I made it all the way to check out on a $200 mistake fare to Italy and by the time I got to checkout the airline had caught it and added the extra 0 they were missing. All this being said it is still a fun subscription with great information and you can get really great deals.
My personal favorite way to find cheap flights is an app called Flight Drop, I have linked it here for you so you can download it yourself. This is an app that sets you up from specific cities to your top destinations with oddly cheap airfare and mistake fares that the airline is going to honor. You pick your top places you want to travel and it will alert you when the best time to travel and when the cheapest tickets are available. This is like Scotts Cheap Flights but without the stress and pressure of instant booking. These flight prices are set and you can book them at any time within the dates they provide, you don’t have to worry about them going up or missing out because you check your email late. This is how I have booked almost all of my most recent flights.
Buying a plane ticket is the scariest thing about traveling to me. You work so hard to save and save and save and then boom it disappears on one freaking plane ticket. If you really bunker down and hunt you can find the cheapest flights. If you follow all these tips and you find one that is within your budget and you think its a good deal buy it, don’t wait a couple days “to see if it goes down” it won’t always and then you’ve missed out. Take a deep breath and hit purchase. Trust me, it will be worth it.
