The Best Sites To Find Cheap Flights
Online tools and services to find the best airfare
Saving money on your next trip requires getting an affordable airline ticket. Thankfully it is easier than ever to find the flight you are looking for. If you have the time and are flexible with location it is possible to find incredible mistake fares and glitch pricing.
Google Flights has become my go to travel tool and continues to improve, but keeping a vigilant eye out for mistaken fares and hidden city fares is the way to get the ridiculously affordable tickets. I often use the email updates from Scott’s Cheap Flights to daydream of future adventures and travel plans.
Even if you are booking your annual flight home for christmas or the vacation of a lifetime it helps to do your research and act fast when you find the flight that suits you. As always the go to methods for finding affordable airfare tickets are:
1. Be flexible with your travel dates and locations
2. Cross the ocean as cheaply as possible
3. Avoid peak travel months and national holidays
To assist with your search here are the best sites on the web to find the lowest price airfare. The sites are arranged in order I use to check ticket prices from my next adventures. Below each site are advanced user guides for the hardcore travel hackers.
STEP 1 : CHECK THE SEARCH SITES
Aggregators like Google Flights search the internet for the cheapest tickets on airline’s homepage and the majority of online travel agencies. This is the best place to start your search to give you the best idea of the price, days to travel, nearby airports, and airline options.
Google Flights
Start with Google Flights. Google Flights is one of the most comprehensive and user-friendly flight search engines around, offering plenty of features to find the cheapest option or exploring flight options for a range of destinations if you have the flexibility and time. Use features like multi destination origin and destination airports and fare tracker to stay updated with the changes in pricing automatically. Overall an incredibly helpful tool.
GOOD:
- Navigating Google Flights are your computer or phone is really easy. Results are displayed in a minimalistic and easy to understand layout and can be tracked via Gmail to help you get the best price.
- There is a map to explore prices from your home airport to global destinations, a low-price calendar to help you find the cheapest flight if you have time flexibility.
- multi-city search function so that you can check for the best prices between 7 origin airports and 7 destination airports at one time.
NOT SO GOOD:
- While Google Flights is pretty comprehensive, it sometimes misses the cheapest fares and doesn’t include some airlines (including Southwest, Aeromexico, and Hong Kong Airlines)
How to Use Google Flights to Find Cheap Flights
Momondo
Head over to Momondo, re-enter your itinerary that you found in Google Flights and hit search. Momondo is a flight search engine that pulls data from online travel agencies, including smaller ones that sometimes offer the best flights and (sometimes) the best prices. As with Google Flight, you don’t book directly through the Momondo site but are redirected to another online travel agency or directly to the airline’s homepage. You can also double check them on Skyscanner to confirm you have the cheapest deal.
GOOD:
- Momondo finds the best price. It searches deeper into the internet and often produces better deals from the smaller OTAs as well as the larger ones. Often you are able to find better deals than the ones that show up on Google Flights
NOT SO GOOD:
- Momondo also lacks extra search features. For this reason, we often recommend starting on Google Flights or Skyscanner and then double-checking prices on Momondo.
How to Use Momondo to Find Cheap Flights
STEP 2 : CHECK ALTERNATIVE OPTIONS
If you have the time and flexibility to look at alternative airline options there are a few services that specialize in finding insanely affordable airfares. Start with Skyscanner or Skiplagged to search for hidden city options then sign up for services like Scott’s Cheap Flights or Secret Flying to be alerted of mistake fares.
Skyscanner
Skyscanner is a flight search engine that’s ideal for people with flexibility in their travel plans. You can search for flights from specific destinations, an area as broad as an entire country, or select “everywhere.” Skyscanner then redirects users to book through the airlines or an OTA.
GOOD:
- Skyscanner’s “Everywhere” tool makes it easy to find the best deals over specific travel dates if you’re flexible with your destination.
- Flexible date calendar and multi-city search function to find the best deals for a given area.
- Great mobile app for searching on the go.
NOT SO GOOD:
- Prices sometimes ghost — when the low price is displayed on Skyscanner’s results page is no longer available when you go to book.
- May not show updated info for less-searched routes.
How to Use Skyscanner to Find Cheap Flights
Skiplagged
Lastly, head to Skiplagged and enter in those dates to be sure you have the absolute cheapest fare. Skiplagged is a search engine for hidden city fares, which is when travelers book connecting flights that goes to a different destination and skip the last flight to stay in the layover city. Needless to say, airlines hate this. These fares can often be cheaper than booking direct flights between the origin and destination. Skiplagged actually got sued by United Airlines for saving people too much money on airfare by finding a loophole in the booking system. But the good news is they won the lawsuit. Once you’ve gone through these steps and found your perfect flight, go ahead and book!
GOOD:
- Skiplagged is a great if your destination is a hub airport and/or a common layover point.
- This is the only site that searches for hidden city fares, which can sometimes be much cheaper.
NOT SO GOOD:
- If you are traveling with luggage or gear this can be a challenge. Most likely you won’t be able to check a bag because it will end up in the final city on the itinerary, not the layover city where you get off.
- Only works for one-way flights. Be sure to check your return flight or ongoing flight options before booking.
How to Use Skiplagged to Find Cheap Flights
STEP 3 : BECOME A PROFESSIONAL TRAVEL HACKER
There are a lot of amazing tools and email subscriptions for finding mistake fares around the world. Here are the 3 top services and guides to find the best airfare on the internet and save hundreds of dollars. Works best for the vigilant travel addict with time and location flexibility.
Secret Flying
Secret Flying is arguably the best resource out there for worldwide flight pricing errors. Each day they scrape up current mistake fares (in mysterious ways), and are prompt with updating when tickets sell out or become defunct. You can subscribe via e-mail, or follow on Facebook or Twitter to keep hot deals on your radar.
GOOD
- no signup. completely free. totally safe.
- incredible fares and savings
NOT SO GOOD
- Only good for flexible travelers or when deal matches future plans
Mistake Fares 2019: What They Are and How to Find Them
Scott’s Cheap Flights
Over 1 million people subscribe to the Scott’s Cheap Flights free email service to receive multiple alerts each day about error fares and deals. You can subscribe for free or of premium service. Premium subscribers pay $39 for a year and get access to 100% of the deals and more quickly than those subscribers on the free plan. On average members save $550/ticket!
GOOD
- Big savings on the flights you are looking for.
- Get notifications of the destinations are regions you are interested in traveling to and get the heads up directly to your inbox.
NOT SO GOOD
- Not the best option if your travels plans aren’t very flexible or last minute since your destination and/or dates might not be available for each promotion.
I’m Scott from Scott’s Cheap Flights Reddit AMA
Dollar Flight Club
At Dollar Flight Club you tell them where you live, where you want to go and then receive deals directly to your inbox or phone. Depending on whether you choose to sign up to the Dollar Flight Club Free or Premium version, you will receive different options like selecting specific airports, alerts, and notifications.All the flight deals direct you to Google Flights which means you get to book directly with the airline rather than with third parties.
GOOD
- Frequent travellers average flight saving will be significantly greater than the $40 cost for the annual plan.
- Time poor and budget travellers have the convenience of getting emails directly to your inbox instead of wasting time searching for the best airfare.
- Premium members get Weekend Warrior Deals for domestic US Flights
NOT SO GOOD
- Most deal are often specific to certain dates so you need to be flexible
- Not worth signing up at the moment if you predominately travel business class, only travel domestically, or live outside the USA.
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