Last Updated: 2024-09-12
Over the years, I’ve honed my skills in nabbing fantastic travel bargains. One of my most memorable finds was a roundtrip ticket with United Airlines from Seattle to Tokyo for a mere $377.16 back in 2016. Today, I will share with you the secrets of how I score these deals. Here’s an in-depth guide on how to uncover the best flight deals.
As a reminder, I am not affiliated with the tools listed below. I did not receive any monetary or other incentives from them. My opinions are solely based on my personal experience.
Anatomy of a Great Flight Deal
Securing a good flight deal hinges on four key factors, all revolving around flexibility:
- When you travel: Avoid peak holiday periods.
- How you travel: Consider red-eye flights, opting out of baggage, or more transfers.
- Where you travel: Embrace spontaneity with “take me anywhere” mindsets.
- When you look for deals: Odd hours might yield surprising results.
Having two factors can help you score a good deal while having at least three can score you a great one. While lacking flexibility doesn’t mean you won’t find deals, it makes the hunt more challenging.
Finding the Best Prices
Google Flights
Google Flight is the most user-friendly way to find good flight deals.
I have a couple of Chrome extensions I use to supercharge my search. The first one is Legrooms for Google Flights. This extension allows your flight searches to show you how much legroom each flight has based on the plane and configuration they fly. More legroom will make for a more comfortable experience, especially for longer flights.
Going.com
Going.com is an excellent tool for those who don’t have the flexibility “when you look for deals” and live in the US. I use their Premium membership, which costs $50 a year, but a free membership will give you alerts on economy deals to the continental US. Once you sign up for an account, you select the airports you travel out of, and Going.com looks for flight deals from that airport and emails them to you. If you sign up for the premium membership, you will get additional access to economy deals in Alaska, Hawaii, and US territories and international travel. Premium membership also alerts you on mistake fares and points/miles deals and lets you set up to 10 custom destination alerts. Currently, Going.com only works with US airports.
Pro Tip: Use Google Flights Explore Feature
If you are flexible about where you travel, the Google Flights Explore Feature is an excellent tool for finding good deals. You can set a month and see the prices for various places in the work.
Purchasing the Ticket
The 24-hour refund rule
In the US, airlines are required to provide 24 hours for passengers to cancel their plane tickets and receive a full refund.
If you find a good deal, do not wait! Buy it first! You can determine if you can go and if it makes sense later. Most airlines make the cancellation process as easy as clicking a button on the website.
Buy during less trafficked hours
Over the years, I have noticed that pricing algorithms optimize for demand traffic. Consequently, purchasing tickets during the middle of the week is generally cheaper than at the end. However, this doesn’t guarantee lower prices; it simply increases the likelihood of finding them.
Double Dip
Amex Offers
If you have an American Express credit card, you might have something called Amex Offers on your account. Sometimes, Amex will offer you a rebate for purchasing plane tickets from a specific carrier. This is a great chance to double dip and make that great price a fantastic price.
Pro Tip: Check the price again
A few airlines (e.g., Alaska Airlines) will allow you to switch tickets without changing fees. If you were to switch to a cheaper flight, you can often get the difference back in credit. A nice trick is to check and see if the prices for the same flight have decreased. If it has and you change to the same flight, you can get the price difference as a credit. I have done it a couple of times successfully. You can then use that credit for future flights.
Securing the Best Seat
Where you sit on a plane can alter your experience quite a bit. Imagine sitting next to the bathroom for a 12-hour flight where people use your headrest as a railing. This is why I use the following tools to determine which seat I should pick:
Aero Lopa
The Aero Lopa website provides highly detailed diagrams of airline seating configurations. With this tool, you can see exactly what the interior of a particular flight is, down to where the windows will be on the flight.
SeatGuru
Seat Guru is an oldie but goodie. Although SeatGuru is not as detailed as Aero Lopa, it does highlight problematic seats (specifically ones that can’t recline or have particular restrictions). Another benefit of SeatGuru is that it allows users to provide photos of the aircraft (although most photos tend to be pretty old). I still use this tool to ensure I don’t quickly select a poor seat.
Pro Tip: recheck seats before the flight
I recommend checking the seat selection again when your travel date is near (anywhere from a couple of days to a week). Usually, seat selections move around, and seats that were previously locked by the airlines also get released. This is a great time to see if you can find a better seat, especially if the seats you originally got were less than ideal.
Maximizing value
Now that you have found the perfect flight deal let’s discuss how to maximize the value of the purchase.
Where To Credit
One way to maximize the value of your ticket is to earn miles on it. Where To Credit makes it easy to determine which frequent flyer program to deposit your points. Consolidating your points into a few programs rather than having a couple of thousands of points here and there makes it easier to use your points.
To use the tool, all you need to do is to find the airline and booking class you are flying. The booking class of your ticket can be challenging to find at times. The easiest way to do this is to use the ITX Matrix tool to find your exact flight. This should show you the booking class of your ticket.
Frequently Asked Questions
Should I book Basic Economy?
This is a very personal question. Basic economy tickets make sense for solo travelers. But if you are traveling with someone else, ensuring you two sit together is always nice. I would generally recommend steering away from basic economy tickets.
If When you travel is particularly challenging for you, I would also recommend steering clear of Basic Economy. The change and cancellation restrictions on Basic Economy fares are usually much stricter than in Main Cabin. For example, Alaska Airlines allows you to cancel your main cabin fare and get credit even if you cancel less than 24 hours before flying. This is not possible with a basic economy fare.
Should I use OTAs for plane tickets?
I do not buy plane tickets from Online Travel Agencies anymore. This is because when things go wrong (e.g., a flight gets canceled, you need to switch flights, you need to cancel, etc.), you need to deal with the OTA rather than the airline. This can get complicated since both airlines and OTAs have separate terms. Generally, the fewer intermediaries you need to deal with when things go awry, the better.
Should I use US Low-cost Carriers?
I generally do not book tickets on Spirit or Frontier. In my experience, the total cost of the ticket is usually about the same as a full-service carrier. These tickets might be helpful for young solo travelers, but I find them to require too much mental overhead to determine if they are worth it.
Deal Seeking Pitfalls
One can fall prey to some common pitfalls when one gets into the deal-chasing game. Below are some of the ones to watch out for.
Forgetting what you are optimizing for
It is easy to get into the mindset of always buying the cheapest ticket. Who wouldn’t want to save an extra $20 on a flight ticket to Hawaii or Las Vegas? But there are times when that $20 is not worth it. If the $20 more expensive flight saves you a 6-hour layover, pick the more expensive flight. I can safely say that most people’s time is worth more than $3.33 per hour. It gets even worse when the cheaper flight has an overnight layover. You can’t find a hotel near the airport for $20 a night. Don’t fall into this trap. Remember the most important thing to you (time, money, or enjoyment).
Beware of buying through Airline Partners
Buying an international plane ticket through an Airline partner (e.g., purchasing a flight flown by Air Canada through United) can be confusing. Often, the benefits of various tiers do not match. One example is that buying a Regular Economy ticket for a flight flown by Air Canada does not mean you get free seat selection. Although the Regular Economy on United allows you to select your seat for free, Air Canada’s Regular Economy requires you to pay a fee. And even though you bought the ticket through United, since Air Canada flies the flight, its policies apply here.
Final Thoughts
Hopefully, this guide will help you get cheaper flights for future travel. I’ll keep this guide updated as I find new tips and tricks. If you found this guide helpful, share your recent deals in the comments or pass it along to a friend. Happy hunting! ✈️
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