There is no special day to book flights; booking on a Tuesday does not suddenly reduce airfares cheap flights.
And, contrary to common perception, browsing in private, using a VPN, or erasing your cookies makes little difference in price. You might save $30, but when I look for inexpensive tickets, I don’t want to save tens of dollars—I want to save hundreds, often thousands.
If you want to save a lot of money, you’ll need some advanced flying hacks.
I’ve been booking flights for over a decade and have saved a lot of money using a number of methods.
However, mastering these will not happen overnight; it may take some time. So, bookmark this page and return to it before booking your next flight!
1 Look into Hidden City Ticketing
Say you want to travel from New York to Dallas, but the direct flight costs $300. However, a flight from New York to Las Vegas with a layover in Dallas costs only $200. Book the cheapest airfare and walk out of the Dallas airport.
You saved $100 and get the satisfaction of knowing you deceived the airline. Perfect.
But let me qualify this option by outlining the risks:
- First and foremost, this only works if you have carry-on luggage. Checked baggage will be checked all the way to its final destination, so you’ll have to travel to Vegas to pick it up (not ideal).
- Second, airlines (particularly United) strongly oppose this. If you do it too often with the same airline, they will notice and may take steps to punish you. They may invalidate your membership points, require you to pay the difference for all flights you’ve taken, terminate your frequent flyer account, bump you off flights, or simply refuse service.
2 Book an Open-Jaw Flight
Open-jaw flights arrive at one airport and depart from another. For example, if you wish to travel across Europe, you could fly from New York to London and then return from Athens to New York.
If you draw the flight path on a map, it looks like an open triangle or an open jaw.
Instead of confining yourself to flying into or out of a single airport, open mouth flights let you to take advantage of the cheapest travel available.
For example, New York to London may be the cheapest trip from the United States to Europe, but Paris to New York may be the cheapest return ticket. Instead of planning a round-trip, travel to Paris and then fly from there!
Because these tickets are listed as round-trip costs, even if they are not, you will not have to pay additional expenses, like as fuel surcharges, twice. These additional fees can sometimes add hundreds to your ticket price.
So, how can you locate open-jaw flights? The simplest method is to book through Google Flights, Skyscanner, or your preferred OTA and select the “multi-city” option.
3 Look for Mistake Fares
Airlines make mistakes all the time! Have you noticed the current headlines?
I have seen round-trip tickets from the United States to New Zealand for less than $500. I also have a friend who traveled to Spain for $150. Mistake fares are real and great.
Airline seat prices are not established by someone sitting at a desk. They are selected by software that automatically updates their webpages. However, because to the complexities of flight price, this software is prone to fault.
Fortunately for us, there are websites that focus entirely on these incorrect fares. To get started, try these:
- Going (formerly Scott’s Cheap Flights
- Dollar Flight Club
- Secret Flying Mighty Travels
- The Flight Deal
- Fly4Free: AirfareSpot: Jack’s Flight Club
4 Search for “Hacker Fares”
It is a common misconception that ordering a round-trip ticket with the same airline would always result in the best price.
“Hacker Fares” may sound like some kind of weird computer sorcery, but they are actually rather straightforward. Instead of ordering a round-trip ticket, you purchase two one-way tickets from different airlines.
For example, you fly from New York to London on United because you discovered an extremely inexpensive one-way ticket, and then you fly back on Norwegian since it’s still the cheapest trip available.
I’m not sure why they gave such a simple operation such an advanced-sounding term, but this is one of the easiest things to pull off with the least amount of research.
Some flight search engines, including Travelocity, automatically include hacker fares in their results. However, if you’re reserving each leg on a different airline, you’ll need to purchase them separately.
If they are not included in your search, you will have to go it alone and locate the fares alone.
5 Search the Local Airlines That Serve Your Destination
Many major search engines do not list low-cost, local carriers, often because these small airlines do not wish to pay a commission.
This implies you have to perform your own research.
Google the airport to which you are flying and compile a list of the smaller or lesser-known airlines that fly there. Then, go to the airline’s website and search directly. You might locate a flight that is pleasantly inexpensive!
Admittedly, this option necessitates a little more effort. There is no way around it, but the savings make it worthwhile.
6 Book One Passenger at a Time
This may not always result in a cheaper flight, but it is worth trying, especially if you are traveling with a group. If you order five tickets at once, the cost per person may be more than if you booked one or two at a time.
Airlines price seats differently based on a variety of external criteria, thus some are significantly cheaper than others.
Flight search engines are unable to combine different priced seats in your booking, thus all five seats will be available at whatever price is available—not always the lowest.
If you have the time and patience to book flights one at a time, you enhance your chances of finding the greatest flight for each passenger.