Flying Doesn’t Have To Be Expensive: How To Book The Cheapest Flight

6 min readJun 29, 2017

Flying is obviously the fastest and most convenient form of traveling, which often makes it the most expensive and painful part of booking a trip. If you are not a weirdo like me (seriously, I have a problem.), there is a good chance you don’t spend countless hours searching for the cheapest flights for trips you never even plan on going on. But let’s be real, not everyone has that kind of time. Traveling is one of the best way to enhance our life, and I’d hate for anyone to miss out on that because they think flying is too expensive. So I decided to create a very detailed guide to help you find the cheapest flight possible. I’m confident that you will be able to learn a thing or two that will aid you on your next adventure.

Before we get started, I want you to keep in mind that no one site or way will ALWAYS give you the best and cheapest options. The best way to ensure you get the best deal possible is to go through every step listed before booking anything. That way you know for sure which site is offering the best deal.

Deal Sites

First thing is first. Websites that specialize in finding and sharing the best travel deals on the web as soon as they go on sale. You can find deals on hotels, flights, travel packages as well as train, bus, and voucher deals. The best part about these sites is that they are all free and fairly easy to operate.

These companies are invaluable because they take a lot of the time and effort out of finding awesome deals on all things travel. The best way to ensure you don’t miss out on any deals is to subscribe to their newsletter so you can get alerts on deals sent straight to your email. My two favorite are the following:

While those two are by far my most used, other notable sights are:

Search Sites

Momondo- Hands down one of the most comprehensive travel booking sites out there. This site is great because it searches all major AND budget airlines.
ITA Matrix- This software by Google is what powers both Google flight search and Kayak. Allows you to search across multiple airlines all at once. Only downside is they do not include budget airlines. There is even a fare calendar option where you can see the lowest prices for each day of month.
SkyScanner- Very similar to Momondo, but often has different prices on the same flights.
SkipLagged- This is a search engine that looks for what is called “throwaway tickets”. Which basically is where you purchase a one-way plane ticket with a layover at the city you’re trying to travel to, which will usually save consumers even more money. Example: You want to fly from Austin to Las Vegas. The flight costs $200, bu there is a flight from Austin to Los Angeles which has a layover in Las Vegas for only $130. You can book that flight and get off in Las Vegas and BOOM you just saved $70. It’s completely legal (just frowned upon), but you still have to book the flight on another website. They can only search for the flights due to a past lawsuit by United Airlines. *If you do decide to do this DO NOT check in a bag, carry on only. Book one-way only because they will cancel your itinerary after you miss your flight.*

Search Flights By Region

Another great way to book the cheapest flights is to search by region instead specific airport. An example of doing this you would be flying into a relatively nearby airport to your final destination, and then booking another flight to your desired city. I saved a over $150 on my flight from London back to New York by booking a flight to Copenhagen first on a budget airline, then flying from Copenhagen to New York instead of flying directly from London. It required more time, but well worth the money saved.

You don’t have to spend tons of time doing several searches. Luckily for us there are sites that simplify searches like this.

Kiwi (formerly Skypicker)- My personal favorite. Here you can search your destination from point A to point B. Not only will Kiwi search major and budget airline options for you, it will also tell you if there is a cheaper option for flying on one airline to a nearby airport and from that airport (usually on a different airline) to your end point. This is how I found my flights from my London to New York example above. It’s important to know that when searching for flights on this website prices are often slightly more expensive than the same flight found on the search engines listed in the previous section. Use Kiwi only as a starting point, then search for the same flights on Momondo or Skyscanner.
Kayak (Explore)- This is the ultimate tool for the flexible traveler or if you are wanting to plan a trip but don’t know where you want to go yet. You can search through options like amazing beaches, family-friendly, romantic, popular destinations, and more. You can also filter searches by price, date, and flight length. Kayak Explore will show you a map with the cheapest options available on each city or based off of your search criteria. Google Flights and Fareness can also do similar searches.

Airline Websites

The last step after you find your best deal is to compare the price you found on one of the search engines to actual airline’s website. Airlines often have seasonal sales or even 24-hour flash sales that most search engines won’t show on their site so be sure to double check the same flight to ensure you don’t miss out!

Bonus

I was recently introduced to a new way to book airline tickets by a friend called Airfordable. This company enables you to book flights for a deposit upfront, and pay the rest in installments before your departure date. They charge a onetime service fee between 10%-20% of the cost of your ticket. There is no compounded interest and no credit checks. This way you can secure your airfare price in advance. Only downside is you can only use flights on Google Flight, Expedia, Orbitz, Priceline, Justfly, Travelocity or Vayma. But, you can also search on any airline website. You can learn more and also earn $25 toward your first booking here.

Conclusion

Booking flights can be the most difficult and stressful decisions of travel, but it doesn’t have to be. There are a few things to consider finally before submitting that payment.

Is jumping through extra hoops, taking a longer or extra flight, or sacrificing comport and other perks by flying on budget airlines worth the amount of money you save? I’m all for saving, but you have to know where to draw the line for yourself. You want to make sure the money you save is enough to justify your decision. Personally if it was only $20 more to fly directly rather than having a few hour layover, I’m probably going to pay the extra $20 because I value those extra hours of my time more than the small amount of extra money.
When flying via budget airlines these tickets are usually completely unbundled. Meaning you get from A to B and maybe a small personal carry-on item. That’s it. Everything else will cost you. Extra bags, more leg room, and any other “luxury” you would otherwise get flying on a major airline. You can save tons of money flying budget, but not without a cost. Also, these airlines only fly to select places. Chances are if you don’t live near a major city you might not be able to find these flights. You can find where these companies fly to on their website Allegiant Air, Frontier Airlines, JetBlue, and Spirit Airlines.
Sometimes you can save a very significant amount of money driving to a major city. If you are from a city where there isn’t a lot of air traffic, like I am, then you may have a hard time finding good deals. Low air traffic = less flights = less options which = higher prices because you really don’t have another choice. Consider searching for flights out of the next closest airport. This is only useful if you save enough to justify the extra time, gas, and parking costs. I’ve driven 4+ hours to another airport multiple times which ended up saving me about $200 roundtrip. Well worth it especially if you are traveling with other people which add to the savings.

I hope this guide will ease the process for you as well as save you a little bit of money. I realize this all may be new information to you and some of it might be hard to understand. If you have any questions or need more information on anything related to this post feel free toemail me directly at Cameron@lifedomination.co or go to LifeDomination.co (not com)

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Thanks for reading.

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