There's not much I love more than a good deal, and this is especially true when I can find a great deal on a flight! "What are your tips for cheap flights?" is also the number one question I am asked from pals when it comes to my volume of travel while working a standard 9-5. (Well, more like 7-4, but you get the idea.)
Most of us know that companies are not stupid. Airlines and hotels know when people typically want to travel, and where they are looking to travel. Like any good capitalist company, they raise their prices to make more money. So, if you can be flexible with when you travel, you will already be able to cut flight prices and save on your trips! If you are someone like me that works in public education and are stuck to the most expensive times of the year to travel, then you need to be flexible with where you are traveling to if you want to save money on your flights.
1.Google Flights and Skyscanner should become your best travel friends!
If you're not using these search engines, I highly recommend starting. They are both incredibly helpful, in different ways.
Skyscanner: Skyscanner has a very user friendly app, which definitely helps with convenience when the moment suddenly hits that you want to look into a trip! The great attraction to Skyscanner is that if you are like me and know the dates that you can travel, it will simply help you find the most inexpensive flights during those dates.
Download the Skyscanner app to your phone. Once you are in the app, click on "Flights", then put in your home airport and explore to "Everywhere". You can also filter results by the amount of layovers, which I love doing because I love a good direct flight! You can also utilize this feature on GoogleFlights, but GoogleFlights doesn't have the ease of an app.
Google Flights: The GoogleFlights version of looking up flexible times and destinations is also really helpful! You can click on "Explore" at the top. You can put in the airport you will be flying out of and then add "Anywhere" for the destination.
When choosing dates, you can put in Specific Dates or choose Flexible Dates if you're able. Then you can easily see where you can travel inexpensively, and when. It's a great money saver!
Google Flights is incredibly helpful, especially if you are looking for a specific location, and you can be flexible with when you go there. Simply click on the Departure/Return space and a two month calendar will enlarge showing you flight prices each day. Use the arrows on either side to continue to look and see when your destination is cheapest to travel to.
There are also filters on Google Flights to easily utilize, whether that is the number of stops you are looking for, which airlines you prefer to fly, a maximum price you are willing to spend, etc.
2. Days and Times are Important: Once again, airlines want to make money, and they do that by knowing when it's most popular to travel. If you can be flexible with your days, you will save more money. Avoid flying on Fridays and Mondays. Those are the busiest days for business travel, so flights will be more expensive. The more you can try and book your flight days for the middle of the week, the cheaper your flights will be!
If you schedule your flights for the earliest morning flights, or the latest night flights (usually a red-eye) those will be cheaper than middle of the day. If you're willing to be flexible, it will help you save a lot of money, which means more trips!
3. Fly Budget Airlines: People can never believe when I say things like, "I love Spirit"! They think I'm joking, but I absolutely am not. Any budget carrier I have ever flown, I've had great experiences and wonderful customer service. They get a bad reputation because people don't always know what they are getting themselves into with an ala carte airline.
Tips for Budget Carriers: Can you fit your luggage in your backpack? If the answer is yes, forego your carry-on and simply take your backpack as a personal item.
Don't check-in right away - If you're cheap like me, then you didn't pay for your seat and the airline will be assigning one for you. Many fill the back first and then move forward, hoping people may buy front seats last minute.
Bring an empty water bottle to fill up at the airport, and a snack from home. Yes, these airlines will charge you for water. But you thought ahead and brought your own, so you now you don't need to be disgruntled paying $5 extra for something to drink on your flight.
Great Tip if You Fly Spirit or Frontier: Book in advance at the airport. If you live close enough to your airport, that this isn't too much of a hassle, you will save around $34 per round trip flight with both of these carriers, booking at the airport as both airlines charge an online booking convenience fee! I typically wait until I have a couple of flights to book, then I head up to MSP airport and book all of my Spirit flights. It has saved me HUNDREDS of dollars!
4. Benefits from Credit Card Reward Programs: There's not much better than a free flight that you earned simply from your everyday spending. You don't have to travel often to take advantage of a reward program. NerdWallet.com is a great resource to see the variety of reward credit cards available, and to be able to compare to see which is right for you.
5. Be Willing to Piece a Flight Together: I can't express enough the thousands of dollars that this has saved me over the years! Using great tools like Google Flights, you can see which airports are cheaper to fly into. So, for example, I fly from MSP (Minneapolis/St. Paul), and I needed to fly into NAP (Naples, Italy) for a wedding. The roundtrip flight from MSP to NSP was about $2000. NO WAY! I would not and could not afford that flight. So instead, I was able to see that I could fly direct roundtrip into DUB (Dublin, Ireland) for $450, and then roundtrip from DUB to NAP for $85 on RyanAir. SOLD!! I was able to make the wedding, and save hundreds of dollars in the process. Plus, the way the flights worked out, I had a few hours to hang out in Dublin before heading back to MSP, which was an added bonus!
The bottom line is that you can save so much money by being flexible; whether it's your dates, your destination, your airlines, your time or all of the above! Small flexibilities can continue to add to huge savings, which means more money for more future travel! And if you're anything like me, the sheer knowledge that you saved money makes your travels just that much sweeter! Happy travels!
コメント