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Summary
There are obvious ways to save money on flights, which include using your earned credit card miles or membership points to pay for your flight. But there are also a few obscure tricks to try next time you book, like comparing one-way and round-trip tickets, choosing a surprise destination, and being flexible with your travel dates.
Flying can be a wonderfully speedy and convenient experience, but plane tickets are often expensive. Whether you’re taking a necessary flight to see family or you’re just looking for a cheap getaway to a foreign place, there are plenty of ways you can save money on plane tickets.
Don’t Choose a Travel Destination Before Searching for Tickets
If you have no idea where you want to go on your next vacation, use it to your advantage! Airlines often showcase a few locations around the globe, and you can see exactly how much it would cost to fly from your local airport to multiple destinations.
For example, Lufthansa Airlines has anOffers & Destinations pagethat lets you see how much it would cost to fly to popular destinations across six regions: Europe, North America, South America, the Middle East, Asia, and Africa. Rather than planning a gorgeous vacation to Greece, and then finding out the plane tickets are much too expensive, you can buy your plane tickets first and then plan everything else after.
Searching for your next vacation spot based on the cheapest flight available is a great way to see more of the world. If your preferred airline doesn’t have a special offers page like Lufthansa does, you’re able to always checkTravelocity’s low-cost faresto see flights from your local airport to anywhere for less than $200 a ticket.
This tip may not work if you need to save money on a plane ride home to see family. However, you may always check for cheaper fares at airports close to the one you’d usually fly into. If you plan on getting a rental car on your vacation anyway, or having family drive you around while you’re there, it could be worth flying to a cheaper airport an hour or two away from the closest one. It’s often cheaper to pay for a couple of hours of gas than it is for a flight to a specific airport.
Be Flexible With Your Travel Dates
One of the most common tips you’ll see when it comes to saving money on plane tickets is to be flexible with your dates—and it’s a common tip because it works. Changing your travel dates, even by just a few days, can save you hundreds on tickets.
Some people recommend traveling in the off season, but this isn’t possible for many of us. If you work for yourself, you may be able to travel more flexibly when everyone else is stuck at the office. But if you have kids, or you’re coordinating two jobs between you and your partner, traveling in the off season can be incredibly difficult.
Luckily, you can still save money on your plane tickets by being a little bit flexible with your dates. If you’re traveling in the summer, you may find that scheduling your vacation a week earlier could save you quite a bit of dough. In the image above, you can see that scheduling a trip between August 12 and 19 saves almost $200 on each ticket compared to scheduling between August 1 and 8.
The same concept can be applied to flights around busy holidays, like Thanksgiving or Christmas. Certain days around the holidays are always more expensive than others because that’s when more people want flights. Always compare flight prices for a day or two either side of the dates you planned to leave.
Related:Google Reveals a New Way to Save on Plane Tickets
Google Flightsis a great tool to show you when flights are likely to be the cheapest. You need to know which airport you’re flying out of, which airport you’re flying into, and a general timeframe of your trip. You’ll see a dollar amount attached to every calendar day, and you may use this info to plan the cheapest getaway possible.
Check Deal Sites and Airline Sites
A third-party deal site can help you find out which airline carrier can get you from point A to point B the cheapest, but there may be miscellaneous fees added to your total price. Even if you don’t end up booking your flight through the third-party site you’re looking at, you now know which airline is the cheapest for your trip. So take that information, head to the airline’s official website, and book your ticket directly with the airline to avoid third-party finders fees.
There are a ton of popular third-party deal sites out there, but here are our favorites:
Some third-party sites, like Google Flights, let you set up email or SMS price alerts for a specific flight route. This way, you don’t have to constantly check back to see whether prices have changed. If you have plenty of time before your trip, you’re able to set up alerts and relax while you wait for the search engine to do all the hard work for you. As soon as you get a notification that the flight has dropped into your price range, it’s time to buy!
Book Your Flight at the Best Time
Many people unknowingly buy their plane tickets too early or too late, and spend much more than they need to on their tickets by doing so. Some people say you should book on a Wednesday, others say you should book at midnight—but these claims never have much solid ground to stand on.
For this tip, we’ll rely on two recent studies (one oninternational airline ticketsand one ondomestic tickets)from CheapAir that give advice based on statistics.
The numbers in the image above refer to the minimum number of days there should be between when you want to fly and when you click buy. It’s worth mentioning that the information is for flights originating from the United States. For most international flights, CheapAir recommends buying plane tickets about 10 months before your travel dates.
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Meanwhile, for domestic flights within the United States, CheapAir found that to find the best deals on your tickets, you should book your flight between 1.5 and 5.5 months before you intend to travel. The average lowest fare among 917 million fares was found about 70 days before a flight’s departure date, but the 70-day mark won’t always be the cheapest for every flight.
Compare One-Way vs. Round-Trip Flights
Though it’s more convenient to book a round-trip flight, it may be more cost effective to book two one-way tickets instead. Plus, if you’re not particular about which airline you fly with, you might be able to find a cheaper return flight from a different airline than the one you use to fly out.
One-way tickets can also be a great way to explore more of an international destination. For example, you can fly into one spot in Europe, travel by train between countries, and then fly home from the last country you visit rather than needing to trek back to the country you flew into.
If you’re flying to a foreign country, it’s possible that plane tickets could be more affordable in that country’s native currency. This is wherehaving a VPN service could come in handy. You can choose an IP address in Australia, for example, and potentially snag cheaper tickets to fly there than if you were using an IP address in the US.
Use Points, Miles, and Memberships
Becoming a member of an airline’s loyalty program is one of the best ways to save money on plane tickets, but you don’t usually get immediate perks. You often only see benefits if you fly regularly, but many—not all—airline miles or points take quite a while to expire.
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Some airlines, like American Airlines, offer a tiered system for earned miles, which lets you accrue more miles per dollar the more you spend. With American’s AAdvantage program, your miles expire 24 months after your last qualifying activity, which could include buying a ticket or redeeming existing miles. So even if you only fly once a year, you may eventually have enough miles to pay for a free ticket or two.
Be Wary of Too-Good-to-Be-True Deals
Being savvy in your plane ticket search can save you hundreds of dollars, but you should always be cautious when booking your ticket outside the airline’s website or a reputable third-party site. If you’re looking at a third-party deal site that’s advertising $10 tickets to Europe, it’s probably a scam. When in doubt, check out the airline’s website directly and compare prices among other third-party sites.
It’s also important to pay attention to what benefits you’re getting for the price of your plane ticket. Tickets for Spirit and Frontier Airlines are typically cheaper, but you have to pay for any luggage other than a carry-on, any food or drinks during the flight, and a reserved seat.
If you have two checked bags and you need an aisle seat, you may end up paying more to fly with a budget airline than you would’ve with one that appeared more expensive based on just ticket prices. Alternatively, if you know you travel light, you could save quite a bit of money by flying a budget, no-frills airline. Just ensure you read the fine print and know exactly what you’re paying for before buying your ticket.
