How do you always find such cheap flights and good travel deals?
I always get asked this question. Of course, that’s the typical response when I say I flew to Iceland for $200 roundtrip, or flew to Spain for $330 roundtrip, or found a flight to Cebu, Philippines for $276 roundtrip! Once I even flew to Florida for $39 roundtrip.
Do I have you asking, “How did you get those prices?” yet?
I’ll share my secret with you. Finding cheap flights is all about the flight search engine. And I’ve come across lots of good flight search engines in my time!
Google Flights
Google Flights is always my favorite flight search engine for finding cheap flights. I like the simplicity and the easy layout. Choose your dates and find the cheapest place to go on the map! Or choose the place you want to go and find the cheapest dates in a large calendar.
For example, I knew I wanted to go somewhere during Easter Week. I didn’t care where, I just wanted to go somewhere cool. So, I put in Easter Saturday to the following Saturday. I found some cheap-ish places. Then, I changed my dates to Friday-Friday, and *BOOM* mind blown. Roundtrip from Philadelphia to Barcelona for $330. BOOK!
Another time, I wanted to go to Iceland. I didn’t have any time restrictions and I know New York City is a hub for Wow Airlines (the discount Iceland airline), so I chose New York City all airports to Keflavik, Iceland and opened the map. I searched through the months for the green highlighted numbers and found a $200 roundtrip flight Thanksgiving weekend. BOOK!
Skyscanner
Skyscanner is my second favorite flight search engine for finding cheap flights. It’s not quite as simple or easy to search as Google Flights in my opinion, but it sometimes has more options and better prices.
Skyscanner also has the option to put in your destination and search for the cheapest month, or put in your dates and see which country is cheapest to fly to then. Once you open up your country, a drop down of different cities will open up with prices.
A lot of times, I play Google Flights and Skyscanner against each other. Since Google Flights is easier to see which destination is cheapest or which time is cheapest to go, I’ll use that information to plug into Skyscanner and see if even cheaper flights pop up! And sometimes Skyscanner will show me options I didn’t even think about and didn’t see on Google Flights because it was too minute, so then I bring that information back to Google Flights.
Kayak
Kayak was my go-to flight search engine until I discovered Google Flights and Skyscanner. Now, it’s on the back burner, but it’s still a great resource.
Kayak lets you use flexible dates, but it doesn’t have the option to be completely open with your destination. To find cheap flights with Kayak, you have to know where you want to go and a general time, then you can choose three days before or three days after. Not quite as easy as searching a whole year in about four seconds for the cheapest dates.
I don’t know if Kayak has deals with the airlines or somehow has secured incredibly cheap prices or just finds airlines that the other two sites don’t find, but Kayak has some great prices and sometimes finds even more flight times that are more convenient. For example, leaving at 1:30 am isn’t ideal; you don’t have a place for a whole day to keep luggage, if you’re going out, you have to leave the bar early to catch the flight, and you’re exhausted when you arrive. Kayak would be the site to find you a nice 11:30 am flight instead, probably for about the same price.
When All Else Fails…
When these three sites don’t give me what I want, I Google. Google of course will give me Google Flights information first, but then there are other sites that might pop up and surprise you. Sometimes you can find airfare errors this way. Sometimes you can find new airlines or new routes that the big sites haven’t found yet. It’s not the most ideal method for searching for a flight, but it can be beneficial!
For example, some airlines don’t use flight search engines. Southwest Air is one of those airlines – you can only book through Southwest’s website. I was looking for cheap flights to Belize over Christmas (HA!) and I couldn’t find anything for under $1000 with less than two layovers. It was a disaster. So, as a last resort, I entered my destination and dates into Google and it spit out Southwest. I found flights with only one layover for just over $600. BOOK!
Final Thoughts
The motto of the story? If you’re flexible with destination and a timeline, you’re going to get the best airfares. If you are flexible with any part of your trip, you can still get cheap flights! My recommendation is to use one of the methods above to find your next adventure. What are you waiting for?
Have you found an incredible airfare deal through a travel search engine? Or from a different method of finding cheap flights I haven’t even thought about yet? Do you have secrets to cheap flights to share with me? Please do in the comments below!
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P.S. You might also enjoy Best Jobs for Travelers or How to Survive Plane Travel Gone Wrong