Finding the cheap flights is key for planning a budget-friendly vacation. Unlike the price you pay for a hotel, you may pay more or less airfare for that seat in coach and get the same service. In my travels, I have researched countless times on how to find the cheapest flight. I know the best way to do it is to be flexible with your travel dates. However, many of you, including me, cannot be flexible all year round, and the only time we can make a trip depends on school breaks, public holidays, and the like. I’ve discovered some websites where you can find the cheapest flights on the dates you plan to travel.
The Best Search Engines Can Lead You to Great Deals and Save You a Lot of Time
After a whole day working, cooking, cleaning the kitchen and putting kids into bed, no one wants hunch over a laptop, open 10 websites, and search for a cheap flight. First things first, let us help you avoid overwhelming yourself by narrowing down the websites you need to search. There are so many online sellers of airline tickets, we cannot search everywhere. Websites which compare airfares for you make things a lot easier.
1. Skyscanner
Ever since I discovered Skyscanner, it has been my favorite search engine to find cheap flights. It offers the cheapest options most of the time, and you also can find great deals based on your own requirements, such as “non-stop” for a long journey, “take off between 9AM and 3PM,” and “land between 1PM and 5PM.”
Let’s use an example to show you how to use skyscanner to do a search:
fly from Boston to San Francisco on June 6, 2020
There are three optional choices, highlighted in red circle, that can help optimize your search based on your own preferences. Click on any of the options you prefer. Once you hit the Search flightsbutton, you will see the result webpage shown below:
There is a lot of information on this page.
- The big red rectangle on the top right includes the summary of your search results, including the best flight (the combination of price and flight duration), the cheapest fight, and the fastest flight.
- The Show whole month link in the purple rectangle on the top left can show you the prices for flying to this destination across the whole month.
- The four green circles include the filters you can edit for your preference to optimize the best outcomes
- Stops– I usually leave all three checked, but I rarely consider 2+ stops flights, because the more you transfer, the more issues may arise
- Outbound– departure time, if you have a preference, such as leaving after 10 AM to avoid rush traffic, you change here
- Trip duration– how long it will take to arrive your destination
- Airlines– narrow the search to specific airlines, this is useful if you are a member of a specific airline or you want to collect points or miles for flying
Normally, choose different airlines for a round trip will have the cheapest prices
2. Kiwi.com
Kiwi.com is another great source to find cheap flights.
Kiwi.com is one of the biggest online sellers of airline tickets in Europe. If you plan to travel in Europe, kiwi.com is the right place to search. You can also find deals on kiwi.com for many destinations in North America.
Different from Skyscanner, kiwi.com has a feature called Nomad, which allows you to put in multiple destinations you plan to travel on same trip and provides the cheapest, best, or fastest routes for you to choose.
Here is how it works. On the home page, click the Return button on the top left to open the drop-down menu and choose Nomad
Then you will see the page below
On the bottom left, click Create your trip, then enter each destination into a separate search box. You can totally customize your trip in your own way, such as where you want to stop and how long you plan to stay.
Once you finish your “places to visit” and click the Find routesbutton at the bottom, kiwi.com will show your multiple results, and you can choose from there.
3. Farecompare
Farecompare provides the prices of the same flight listed on many popular booking sites, including Kiwi.com, Expedia, Cheaptickets, CheapOair, and most airlines, but it doesn’t include Skyscanner. If you search on both farecompare and skyscanner, you pretty much have everything covered. That is a simple and easy way to find the cheap flight.
When searching for a cheap flight, remember that paying less does not always mean you’ll get lower quality service. Save yourself time by narrowing down the search engines: Skyscanner, Kiwi.com, and farecompare. Hope you have a wonderful start of your journey.
Happy flying! I’ll see you in my next post.
