Tips for Saving Money on Flights

Tips for saving money on flights—whether you have a destination in mind or want inspiration where to go—inexpensively! Smart browsing can find awesome deals.  If you know where to look…

 

Wanna travel but have no idea where to go?

Let airfare prices inspire you…

Sign up for Scott’s Cheap Flights to get alerts in your mailbox for “mistake” fares that are legit but short-lived. Snag a deal, then figure out what you want to do there. You can set perimeters in advance for your home airport and select countries you’d like to visit. Current membership is $39 for the year.

Google Flights: Click on Explore Map (drop down menu). See where to fly based on price from your home airport. Leave the “Where to?” box blank to see flight prices for various destinations. Or narrow it down by typing a specific place. Date? Can state “2 week trip in June” or “in the next 6 months” or “all months” (to see the differences in flying low/shoulder season).

SecretFlying.com is another site to search for summer/winter deals or spy sale or “error fares.” Flights departing from specific airports (most outside of USA) on specific days of the week can result in great savings. Build your trip by plugging in a destination and searching one-way fares to hop around a continent. Current promotions on TUI airlines from UK to elsewhere are £29 for RT fares.

Finding affordable flights when you DO know where you want to go:

1. Cash in on your airline miles.

Easy ways to accumulate points (other than signing up for the airline rewards program which grants you points for miles flown) is to open and use an airline credit card. Look for offers that provide 40,000+ points for opening a card and spending a certain amount within the first 3 months. Using an airline cc gives you 1-2 points for every dollar you spend on your everyday shopping, plus points for flying on that airline. Other perks of the airline cc can include higher points, no baggage fees, no foreign transaction fees, priority boarding and even complimentary airport lounge passes (thanks, United!).

Pros: Require less miles to fly. For example, American Airlines, United and Delta currently require 30,000 miles to book one-way flights (economy) to Europe, but tack on taxes/airport fees which vary greatly depending on which airports you fly through. London is one of the most expensive cities to fly out of and can add $200 for airport taxes to your “free” flight.

Cons: Limited availability of seats. Less desirable flight schedules usually involve longer routes. When redeeming award miles, book your flights fast asap. Black out dates DO occur with airline programs. Avoid peak season and book early to secure seats for the lowest points.

If you can’t secure a return ticket, consider flying out of another destination. For example, if flying into Edinburgh you can fly out of Aberdeen or Glasgow, Scotland. Or if hopscotching around Europe, secure your costly return ticket from Dublin, Paris or Amsterdam. Just book one-way tickets through the Redemption Program. Same points required—as long as there are seats available. As seats become more limited their worth (points required) increase. But before you waste your precious miles on inflated economy seat, check business class award chart for available seats. I’ve booked a business class seat twice for less miles (57,500) than an inflated economy seat (that jumps to 75,000 – 125,000 miles).

2. Use non-airline credit card points.

Pros: No black out dates. Faster travel times with more choices for direct routes. (Airline redemption programs tend to produce less favorable flight schedules.) Procedure: search out the best price fare and flight schedule and simply pay for that flight by applying points to the cost, using a card such as Chase Sapphire Preferred.

Cons: points are worth less than airline points dollar for dollar. Takes far more points to book an international flight through the credit card’s travel program than booking through an airline’s redemption program. For example, to book the same one-way flight from Scotland to my home in the US required 194,080 points (plus $319 in taxes/airport fees) thru Chase Sapphire but only 30,000 miles (plus $196 fees) thru the American Airlines redemption program.

However, you can TRANSFER these cc points to a travel partner including airlines and hotel brands 1:1. Airlines include Aer Lingus, British Airways, Blue Air, Iberia, JetBlue, Singapore Airlines, Southwest, United, and Virgin Atlantic. Hotels include Hyatt, IHG, and Marriott. Then these miles become far more valuable. Do a little research what airlines offer and know which operate near you. For example, Singapore Airlines seems to require the lowest points–only 27,500 miles to fly from USA to Europe verses 30,000 on other major carriers.

3. Search Google Flights.

Flying from one continent to another is often the biggest trip expense. Contrast price differences by searching different arrival airports for your destination on GoogleFlights.com. Prices will spring up on their map giving you immediate feedback on the cheapest city to fly into from your home airport.

To narrow your focus to fastest, cheapest, most direct flight use the advanced search on the ITA Matrix which uses the same software as Google Flights (but does not show budget airlines). You can now book that flight by copying and pasting the itinerary into the BookWithMatrix site.

As for budget airlines from the USA, check out WOW for low cost airfare to Iceland, and Allegiant, JetBlue or Southwest airlines for travel in the US.

Think outside the box. Consider other hub cities a short flight or train ride to your destination. For example, if Edinburgh is your destination, check out flights landing in London instead and consider taking the 4.5 hour train to Edinburgh. Or snag a sale to Dublin and a book a short flight on a discount carrier. It can be considerably cheaper to land in a different city and take a short flight, train or bus to get to your desired location. Europe and Asia have more budget airlines than we have in the US (such as EasyJet or Ryanair), with a potential for huge savings.

Rome2Rio is my favorite resource for searching alternative ways to get from X to X by bus, train, uber or taxi. It lists and compares mode of transportation, travel time, cost, and routes per various forms of transportation. Simply plug in the 2 cities and you can see at a glance whether it makes more sense to travel by bus (1 hr 52 min travel time with 3 stops and a 35 min layover for $17 per person) OR by taxi (18 min for $42 shared between 2 people). No-brainer!

4. Check other search engines.

Momondo, CheapAir, Skyscanner, CheapOAir, Kayak are other sites to compare flight costs and schedules. Just keep in mind that these often include multiple carriers, so checked luggage can be a problem if connections are short as you will have to pick up luggage and recheck it on a different airline carrier.

5. Shhh…operate in Sleuth Mode!

Once you find a favorable fare record the details if you can’t make an immediate purchase and return to it later in an incognito browsing mode. (Windows users: click on 3 dots in the upper right-hand corner of your screen and click on “new incognito mode”). Why? Because the web likes to drop a cookie trail of your browsing history, and the search engine you used to find that great deal will likely be higher the next time you return potentially resulting in higher fares each time you search. I’ve even noticed flights disappear from airline redemption sites until I open the website in a private browsing window where they reappear— as if by magic!

Case study: securing tickets from USA to Scotland

(No “big reveal” just sharing my process of booking a recent flight.)

I booked one-way economy seats from my hometown in Indiana to Edinburgh for 30,000 miles (plus $6 fees) through the American Airlines redemption program. Once I planned my itinerary and was ready to secure a return ticket, I was surprised to see that the airport fees had jumped from $6 a ticket to $196 when flying OUT of the UK through London back to the US. So I began searching for alternatives to avoid flying through London (which has some of the very highest taxes/fees to fly in/out of) which meant looking elsewhere than AA (American airlines) as their flight route showed all departures from Scotland going directly to London first before connecting elsewhere in the world.

I then checked other airline mileage programs that I had. Delta was surprisingly high for both the miles required and the extra fees. For the same one-way fare, they required 280,000 miles (!) PLUS $578 in airport taxes/fees. So far, American was much lower.

Searching all airlines, including low-cost budget carriers, I found that one-way fares were very high ($1600) for late June.

Using www.cheapflights.co.uk I searched for flights that originated in Scotland (or nearby Ireland) back across the ocean to 4 airports of my choosing in the USA. Found a flight from Aberdeen to Chicago on Air Lingus for £519 that had a total travel time of 12 hours. (There were cheaper flights under £400 that took 49 hours or longer but would require overnight stays.)

Also searched Google Flights by plugging in my departure: Aberdeen, Scotland and left the one-way destination open to simply “USA” for my departure date. Results: NYC for $471 or Chicago for $605. Again, I would then have to book a separate flight from Chicago/NCY to my hometown in Indiana. For comparison, also searched departure from Dublin (quick flight from Aberdeen) to USA and found a direct 8.5 hour flight for $691 into Chicago, or a 28 hour flight for $427 that involved a 17 hour overnight layover in Lisbon, Portugal (nice, one of my favorite cities!)

Then checked other sites such as Momondo.com and Skycanner.com. Neither generated flights under $1477. And those $1477 “cheap” flights required between 31 and 51 hours total travel time.

In the end, redeeming 30,000 miles for my flight back home from Scotland on AA.com plus the $192 fees was the best deal. And total travel time was 19 hours, not 31 or 51 hours, which would’ve involved an additional cost of a hotel stay in Boston or NYC.

Yes, it’s time consuming to put in the time to check out all the options. But saving money on flights lets us travel more affordably. And more often.

And who doesn’t want that!?

Accumulate airline miles by flying (join airline reward programs) and points by spending (open an airline credit card that offers a promotional bonus of 40,000 to 50,000 sign-on miles) and soon you could be booking an award ticket to an international destination practically free.

Finding affordable flights and travel hacking (use miles for air, hotels, car rental) can become addictive once you get the hang of it. But a word of warning about credit card debt—be careful not to spend more than you normally would (groceries, gas, clothing, etc). Pay off the balance each month, as compounding interest would certainly negate any potential savings! It’s too easy to get caught in a downward spiral. Be debt free. And fly for free.

 

(no affiliate links whatsoever…just honest free advice)