Your Quick Guide to Cheap Flights
When Phil and I booked our first flight to Europe, we paid a whopping $452 to fly to Venice on Delta. Our next trip out of the country? Even cheaper! While plane travel is expensive, it doesn’t have to completely bust your trip budget…if you have the right tools to find great flight deals, that is.
With a bit of research & some planning, you can spend less of your money on flights and more on the things that really matter like good food & coffee!
Once your flights are booked, check out our Guide for Finding the Best Accommodations to ensure you find the best quality accommodations for any budget! Then, check out our Ultimate Vacation Packing List to ensure your bag is filled with everything you need (& nothing you don’t!).
Please note this article does contain affiliate links, meaning we may receive a small commission if you purchase one of our recommended items (at no cost to you!).
Flexibility is KEY
The unfortunate news is that the best flight deals might not be available at your preferred airport in your single destination during the specific days that you want it. The more flexible you are on your location and your dates, the more opportunities you have to snag a great flight deal!
That being said, it’s not realistic that every trip will have complete flexibility. Work schedules & bucket list dreams may limit your ability to snag any cheap flight that comes your way. In fact, when I worked in Higher Education, Phil and I had limited date flexibility since I needed to travel when classes were not in session. Since we knew we wanted to travel during Spring Break, we decided to follow the flight deals to an unexpected location during our preferred dates.
In our case, we both made lists of our top 5 destinations & searched for the least expensive flights that matched our list. Once we found tickets, we booked right away & built an itinerary around our new destination! Flexibility afforded us more on our actual trip & gave us the opportunity to see new unexpected places.
Let Google Flights Be Your New Best Friend
Google Flights makes comparing dates and destinations seamless by providing several different options to filter flights across most top airlines. You can filter by specific airlines, number of stops, duration of travel, arrival/departure time, and more. You can even set flight alerts for a specific itinerary so that you can book once the prices (hopefully) go down!
While the filter feature is amazing, there are two other features that are incredibly helpful when it comes to finding flight deals.
Date Grid. Google Flights allows you to see the prices of all surrounding dates, both when selecting dates and via a date grid that gives you opportunity to see just how much fares change with each departure/return date combination! This makes it easy to shift dates around if you are looking to book within a certain time window, but aren’t tied to specific dates.
Search by Continent/Country. In addition to searching for specific destinations, Google Flights allows searchers the opportunity to search for flights to any country or continent! This is helpful if you know a general area that you would like to travel to, but are open to shifting your location if you have a better deal. See below for a search example for flight options from PHL to any destination in South America! You can filter these destinations by price to catch the best deals!
Sign Up for a (Free or Paid!) Flight Deal Service
There are a multitude of flight deal services available that use search algorithms to track cheap flights and deliver the results straight to your inbox! My personal favorite is Fare Drop, though I have also used Pomelo Travel. In fact, these flight services are singlehandedly responsible for alerting me to a massive Europe flight sale that allowed us to book the cheapest flights that we have ever booked overseas! FareDrop offers a limited free version that will send you general flight deals for destinations across the world, but their premium service allows you to customize the experience. Premium subscribers are able to add up to 10 preferred departure airports so that the best flight deals at your home airport come straight to your inbox. While the free version is certainly helpful, the premium version will offer the most streamlined experience, helping you find the best flight deals for your preferred destinations! A premium flight deal service subscription is what we were using when we were able to save $500+ on tickets to Europe not once, but twice!
Travel in the Off Season
It will likely come as no surprise that the most expensive plane tickets are going to happen when they are in the highest demand! With kids out of school and everyone looking to cash in on a beach vacation, ticket prices are notoriously steep in the summers. This doesn’t mean that you can’t find a good deal during peak travel season, but you may have to dig a bit deeper. If you have availability in the off season, your wallet will likely thank you as you pay cheaper rates for both flights and accommodations! Keep this in mind when planning out your PTO.
Know When to Book
The million dollar question: When is the best time to book flights? 3-4 months beforehand in the middle of the week, my friend! At least…some of the time, that is.
Generally speaking, flights are usually cheaper during the week. People have more free time on the weekends to tend to personal matters and are more likely to handle personal logistics (ie: book flights) during this time. With higher demand comes…that’s right higher prices! This is not always the case, but Tuesdays are typically the best day to find flight deals.
When it comes to booking flights in advance, the sweet spot is usually 3-4 months, particularly if flights will be in demand. Without high demand, you may see a reduction in cost as the departure date moves closer, but flights are usually at their highest cost in the 1-2 weeks leading up to departure date. If flights haven’t dropped and your trip is 1-2 months out, I would pay close attention to Google’s warnings that rates will increase and plan to book accordingly!
So, start searching early & search at multiple times throughout the week or set-up a flight alert so that you will know when those rates drop mid-week!