Tips and Tricks to Save Money on Your Next Flight

If you are looking for tips and tricks to save money on your next flight you have found the right resource. Holiday and summer travel prices are known to shoot sky-high but options are still available to get lower ticket prices for many top airlines. Post-pandemic airline travel has the potential to be chaotic. You might find ticket prices to be higher than normal as airlines try to recover from financial losses experienced during COVID-19 lockdowns. Fortunately, strategies and outlets are available to book your travel at affordable price points, even when flying with little notice. Read ahead to learn valuable tips and tricks to save money on your next flight today.

First Step - Take Advantage of Advanced Price-Comparison Websites

Modern times presents no shortage of options when you are looking to compare ticket prices between all available airline carriers to get the best deals. Scouting through multiple online price-comparison and booking websites ultimately helps find the lowest ticket prices available. You might get lucky and get a rock-bottom deal on the first price-comparison website you use. You also might need to comb through multiple sites and options before finding acceptable ticket price(s) for your budget and needs. Some websites are designed to help find airline tickets only. Most, however, are created with overall travel needs in mind. On these sites options are also available to search for the best prices on hotels, rental cars, trains, cruises and full-service resort packages. Continue reading directly below to learn how to use a few of the best travel-based price-comparison sites to get the best deals on airline tickets today.

Kayak

Kayak is not the oldest price-comparison website but is still considered a veteran of the industry. Now in business for almost eighteen years, Kayak is perfectly designed to get you the best deals on tickets for most airline carriers and more. When you arrive at the website you will find a list of options in the upper left-hand corner. Click on “Flights,” to begin your search for low ticket prices. Next, enter your departure and return dates (if flying round-trip) and both applicable airports. Before you even fully enter your travel dates, Kayak lists a range of expected prices for the month during which you are traveling. Kayak also color-codes this list to coordinate with certain days of the month, so you know which dates will be cheapest on which to fly. Once your full search parameters are entered, Kayak presents the entire list of ticket prices and options from lowest to highest costs (although customizable results options are also available).

Skyscanner Flights

Skyscanner Flights essentially works the same was as Kayak, albeit with fewer non-flight-related options. The Skyscanner website compares deals on flight tickets, hotels and car rental prices. Its search option process is the same as Kayak’s, however. Once you enter your full travel details you are presented with a list of airline ticket options from lowest to highest.

Additional Airline Ticket Price-Comparison Options

Priceline supersedes Kayak as an industry-veteran option for finding the best prices on various travel-related purchases. Similar to Kayak, Priceline also presents numerous options outside airline tickets. Priceline has been in business since 1997, however, and is a trusted and reliable source for getting the best deals on airline tickets today. A few more online price-comparison websites popular with airline travelers today include:

• Hotwire.

• Orbitz (also offering Delta flights from $49 one-way and up).

• Agoda.

Beware of Constantly Fluctuating Prices (and additional tips)

Throughout the course of writing this article, prices for the cheapest tickets on Kayak traveling round-trip from BWI (Baltimore, MD) to LAS (Las Vegas, NV) fluctuated from $123 up to $195 back down to $139. Some of this is by design, as a way to entice purchases from consumers who fear the price of their tickets rising even higher. Most of it is simply the way pricing for airline tickets functions industry-wide. Ticket prices change based on how many available seats are left on a particular flight and how closely consumers book tickets to actual departure dates.

Airlines want full flights to the point they will overbook flights, knowing the compensation they award travelers who are willing to take alternate/later flights is less than the losses they experience for undersold flight schedules. Be patient with pricing fluctuations when booking tickets. No preset mythical “best time” to purchase plane tickets actually exists. The best time to actually purchase you tickets is when you find the best deals and are comfortable with the price offered. Choosing the best days to fly, however, is another story entirely.

Fly During Off-Peak Days and Seasons

Flying on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Saturdays is cheaper than flying on all other days of the week. If possible, book both your departure and return tickets on one of these days to save the most money. Even booking one leg of a round-trip flight on a Tuesday, Wednesday or Saturday will save you some money.

How to Save on Airline Tickets During the Summer and Holiday Seasons

Summer month and holiday season airline tickets are commonly more expensive than tickets for any other period of time during each year. Summer and holiday travel is referred to collectively as peak-season travel times. Off-peak seasons, also referred to as shoulder seasons, run between mid-April and early-June, then again from late-August through early-October. Airlines raise prices during peak-season months because they know most consumers will travel for vacations (summer) and to visit family and friends (holidays). If you have no choice but to travel during peak-season months, or simply choose to for vacations or holidays, ways to save still exist. First, fly on off-peak days even if during peak-season months.

Sign up for price-drop notifications from Kayak, Priceline or other price-comparison websites to grab the best deals as soon as they become available. Join a travel rewards club facilitated by your favorite airlines. Some are free and some have paid memberships. Savings from travel rewards clubs are often significant, however, and outweigh the membership costs, especially when purchasing multiple tickets or flying when prices tend to be higher. Additional tips on how to save on airline tickets during the summer and holiday peak-seasons include:

• Allow for flexibility in your travel dates (prices for flying on Tuesday might be cheaper than those for flying on Wednesday, etc.)

• Use the little-know “hidden city” ticket purchase trick to deboard the plane at a layover city.

• Open an airline-sponsored credit card account to get discounts, travel points and deals.