One of the most tedious parts of traveling for me is finding affordable airfare.
The price of a plane ticket can really make or break my travel plans.
I went for many years of my life without flying. My family would always do road trips for our family vacations because not only was it easier with two small children but also the most cost-effective option.
Road tripping is definitely an affordable option when it comes to traveling locally, but as I travel more and more, I’ve obtained different tips and tricks when it comes to finding affordable flights, making flying not only more convenient but now, more cost-effective when it comes to traveling as well.
Airfare seems to be one of the parts of traveling that either throws me off from going to a destination or pushes me to it. Flights can be expensive. However, lucky for us, airline companies tend to have flights go on sale all the time.
Below I’ve listed my favorite sites and tips I have for finding cheap, affordable airfare no matter where you’re going.
Be Flexible.
Before mentioning websites that I love when it comes to booking cheap flights, one piece of advice that I have when it comes to finding affordable flights is to be flexible. I have a bucket list of places I want to go to and I think is a really good thing to have to help you keep your goals or ‘bucket list destinations’ always in mind when planning trips.
However, that being said, if you’re like me and just love traveling in general, being flexible with your trips and destinations, will in return allow you to travel a lot more affordably and a lot more often as well.
Instead of searching for flights and planning out a trip to Fiji, a destination on my bucket list, I know that I’ll plan on going to Fiji one day and I’ll keep my eye out for an amazing deal, but I’m not paying top dollar for plane tickets because I need to book a Fiji vacation ASAP since it’s on my bucket list. I’ll wait for the day that there is a sale on Fiji flights and book my trip then.
Being flexible, allows you to have that time to wait for that amazing deal and go to any destination in the world on any budget.
The Best of The Best.
After looking for flights from Australia to the U.S. and vice versa, (seriously plane tickets are not cheap traveling back and forth between these destinations) I’ve definitely been able to find the best of the best when it comes to travel booking websites.
It’s insane that a travel website can have the same flight be hundreds of dollars more expensive than a different travel site.
After hours and hours of looking up flights for my travels, I’ve found the best of the best and listed them down below so you can save yourself some time and avoid all the other travel websites out there that aren’t worth your time.
Statravel: This is my go-to when it comes to searching for flights. I’ve mentioned Statravel on my blog in the past. Ever since I was recommended to them from my University before studying abroad, I’ve been booking pretty much all my flights, especially international trips, from Statravel. Whenever I’m searching for flights, Statravel is the first place I look before checking all the other websites. If other websites, such as the airline’s website, has the same price as Statravel, I always book on the airline’s website. However, Statravel is definitely a secure site to book off of, as I have booked countless trips from them in the past.
They also constantly have deals and promotions going on. Right now like fly to Europe for $335 round trip and tons of different pre-planned World Tours you can go on. I highly recommend checking them out and signing up for their email list as well to stay up-to-date with their flight deals.
Kayak: Kayak has a lot of cool features, which is why it’s one of my favorite websites to look for flights. I honestly haven’t booked airfare directly on Kayak.com before, but doesn’t mean it’s not one of my favorite travel websites to use.
I like to specifically use Kayak as a tool to check prices and possible destinations I want to travel to and even discover places I’ve never even heard of before!
As I mentioned, one of the cheapest ways to get airfare is to be flexible. Kayak has an option where you can pick your departure airport, and if you’re not particular with where you want to fly to, you can search “anywhere.” This will then show all the places you can travel around the world from your departure airport and how much it will cost. Such a cool feature! You can then narrow it down by price or by date. This “anywhere” feature is one of my favorites when I’m in the mood to book a trip, but I’m not particular with where I travel to.
Kayak.com also has another great feature that I love to use. When looking at flights, Kayak gives you advice on whether it’s a good time to book based on the data they’ve collected on that particular flight cost. They factor in tons of different information to predict if it’s a good time to buy your flights, (they’re predicting the flight price will rise soon) or that you can hold off on booking (flights price may drop soon). It’s not guaranteed, but with all the data they collect, I trust their predictions when it comes to the flight prices going up or down.
Scott’s Cheap Flights: Scott Cheap Flights is a really cool website that sends you email notifications when flights are on sale. After picking your location of where you’re based, Scott’s Cheap Flights will send you email notifications whenever flights go on crazy sales for a number of different reasons. Sometimes airlines have glitches or mistakes or even 2-hour flight deals, which a lot of times, goes missed for us, busy people. Scott’s Cheap Flights does all the work for you and catches all these glitches, sales, and promotions and emails you letting you know.
Once you see a sale going on that interests you, you can either purchase the plane tickets off of Scott’s Cheap Flights or like what I do, head over to Google Flights and check them out there. The promotions, since a lot of times are mistakes, often end very quickly, so you definitely need to act fast, but if you book the flight, you’ll be getting an amazing deal.
There is also a couple of different options on Scott’s Cheap Flights; a paid membership or the free membership. With the paid membership, you definitely receive more deals and the notifications before anyone else, but I’m happy with the free membership at the moment and definitely recommend you sign up for it as well if you’re looking to travel more.
Google Flights: Google flights is the most reliable website to search for flights on. As I mentioned, with Scott’s Cheap Flights, you can book flights directly on Google Flights. I’ve had some minor issues with booking through travel agents in the past, so if I have the option to book directly through the airline’s website, I always do.
Google Flights displays all the lowest prices and re-directs you to the airline’s website, giving you the peace of mind that you’re booking directly through the source and not a 3rd party provider.
Finding flights and booking a trip can be a lot of work and sometimes seem a bit overwhelming.
These are really the only websites that I look at when finding Cheap Flights. I don’t tend to check a lot of sites when it comes to flights because that just makes the process a lot more overwhelming.
Time after time, the sites that I mentioned above have been the best of the best when it comes to finding cheap airfare. Instead of spending hours and hours looking at flights, I hope my narrowed down list helps you in your future trip planning process.
What’s your favorite travel website? Let me know in the comments down below
