Cheap flights: the holy grail for everyone with a serious case of wanderlust. For most of us, it’s all about getting to the destination as inexpensively as possible so that we can travel more often and spend more cash on the things that really matter. So, next time you want to get away, be strategic! Here are a few quick and easy tips for getting there on the cheap.
Get secretive
One of the dirtiest trick of the travel industry is upping the cost of flights for some of us, but others. Depending on the number of times you search for a particular flight, the internet browser that you use and a few other seemingly randoming factors, websites are increasing the price each time that you visit the site. Their logic is that you are more likely to buy your plane tickets when you see the price regularly going up. Outsmart the system by always searching for cheap flights in incognito or private browsing mode.
In Safari and Chrome, hold down Command/ Control, Shift, and N to start a private session. For Mozilla Firefox, hit Command/ Control, Shift, and P . Every time you search for a flight, close out your private session and start a new one.
Know when to say when
The day of the week that you choose to fly on will make a massive difference in the price of the flight. Generally speaking, if you want a cheap flight, it is best to fly during the middle of the week. There are still a lot of variables though. The best way to get a clear picture of the cheapest days to fly is to use a website like Skyscanner. Choose the departure and arrival cities then select “whole month” so that you can get a visual overview of the full price schedule for the month.
Keep it loose
In general, it’s good to be flexible and this is particularly true when it comes to travel. If you are flying from New York City to Istanbul, there’s a good chance that your travel site is going to recommend flying from NYC to London or Paris or Frankfurt then connecting on to Istanbul. But, what is you book a flight from NYC to London and then book another flight from London to Istanbul? You can actually save hundreds by booking your own layovers. If your flight is expensive, get experimental. If you are going from Madrid to Tokyo, look at every possible route. Consider taking a train to Barcelona then booking a flight from Barcelona to Rome then another flight from Rome to Tokyo. While it might sound complicated, it’s really just a matter of searching around. Take a look at the cheapest layover that the travel site gives you then see if it’d be cheaper to book those two flights on your own.
