How to Find Cheap Flights with a Few Key Sites

If you follow these steps you are sure to find the cheapest airline flights possible. You don't have to look at every site on the internet to find the best prices for airline tickets. You can even find extremely cheap last minute flights. These sites will bring the cheap flights to you!

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

1. 
    

   USE EXPEDIA'S TREND TRACKER.
   
   Cheap flights come in seasons. This little tool is a wonderful way of catching at a glance the cheapest time to fly to your destination. You can save a thousand dollars by taking your vacation during the off season or just on its edge. For example, in the Colorado mountains they have the 'mud season' where condos are dirt cheap because it is in between the summer hiking and the winter skiing months. For a Hawaii vacation you will pay a lot more for a flight in February (whales), May (college gets out), or December (Christmas vacations) than you will pay for cheap flights in January, March, April (whale season), June (college is still out), or November. Trend tracker tells you all of this for every destination you want to fly to.
   
   If you have this down, or your dates are flexible read on to find cheap-o tickets.

2. 
    
   Airline Consolidator

   MAKE KAYAK.COM YOUR SECOND STOP.
   
   I have become more and more impressed with this airline consolidator site the more I use it. This is slick! As normal, you put in your search info hoping for a cheap flight. Instead of the maddening spinning wheels saying 'we are searching' you can watch the search build and see the prices coming on Kayak. What's more, it checks orbitz, expedia, travelocity, and the other traditional cheap flight sources for you!
   
   If you don't like the times that come up, look at the left tool bar. There are sliders that can immediately adjust the time range for your departure or arrival. You don't have to re-do your search!

3. 
    

   USE KAYAK'S CHART OF FARE HISTORY TO PINPOINT CHEAP FLIGHT DAYS
   
   This is another great trick on this site. You have the big picture of which month to fly in from Expedia. Click on the 'chart of fare history' and you will see a day by day chart of the fare price for your trip. If you have any flexibility you can save even more money by buying cheap tickets on the cheapest days to fly.

4. SWITCH TO PRICELINE AND BID ON THE CHEAPEST FLIGHT DAYS FOR 50% OFF RETAIL.
   
   On the front page scan down to 'name your own price.' Click on the link for airfare. Start bidding at about 70% off the published fare from Kayak. Kayak includes fees and taxes in their figure, priceline does not. So, start low. You can always wait a few days and bid again.

5. IF PRICELINE DOESN'T WORK, BUY DIRECT FROM THE AIRLINE AT KAYAK'S PRICE.
   
   Click on the small arrow by the price you want. Then click on the airline's name that operates the flight. If you can buy directly from them it will be easier to change flights if there are any problems. Kayak gets their cut by referring you to the airline website.

Tips & Warnings

• Getting flights enough in advance to take advantage of price dips can help.
• Search for surrounding airports. Sometimes smaller airports give cheap flight discounts.
• If you buy through a discount dealer (orbitz or expedia) changing tickets is a pain.

Resources

• Expedia Trend Tracker
• Increase Your Ehow Earnings, Guaranteed

[pinkpantherr]

on 10/26/2009 If i am going to Lagos i do not go without using www.flightstolagos.uk.com. Not only they have the best prices in town but also its very easy to book a flight there.

[moneymakinmama8]

on 4/14/2009 Great tips on finding cheap airline flights online. 5*

[carmensjones]

on 4/14/2009 How to Find Cheap Flights with a Few Key Sites is a great idea. will save in my favs.

[eclecticprof]

on 4/14/2009 You are right ssnow87 on Southwest etc. I do use those when I know I am flying to an area they do well in. They just don't go a lot of places I want to go. I am not sure if those airlines are available on priceline though. Do you? If not, a low bid still beats them out. I did go check out optifly and wasn't too impressed. Unless I am not using it right, it just gives you the routes, then bumps you to expedia. Am I missing something?

[ssnow87]

on 4/14/2009 One key thing you didn't mention is the low cost airlines like Ryan Air, JetBlue, Southwest, and Air Asia! There are over 250 of them and they're critical to consider if you want to save money (and time too since they sometimes fly direct routes that the major carriers do not). One new site - http://optifly.com makes both low cost carriers and major airlines extremely easy to consider. You can find the best ways to get between A and B using both types of airlines. It's one tools I definitely go to now as part of my "flight search rolodex".