Flying for less
The first thing I do requires more time and effort. I go on sites like kiwi.com and flights.google.com (again, full list is at the end) and manually search for good flights.
The second thing is a little bit easier. I follow the deal-gathering websites like flynous.com and cestujlevne.com (list of all sites is at the end of the article) for the best deals. Some of them even have alerts you can create, so you won’t miss a deal you might be interested in.
If I don’t want to wait for weeks or months to get one, my go-to way to find a good price for a ticket immediately would go like this:
- I will check the deal-gathering websites for some good deals for my planned destination, and I don’t really care where is the flight originating, as long as it’s in Europe.
- If I find one, I check kiwi.com for cheap way to get to and back from the airport, where the main flight is leaving from. Done.
- If I haven’t found a good deal, I go on kiwi.com and search for a flight there and try to be a bit flexible, including nearby airports at both the destination and the point of origin.
- When I find a good flight, I leave kiwi.com (sorry kiwi – your search engine is great, but your support & “flight compensation” sucks) and book directly with the airlines.
- Done. 🙂
Cheap flights
These are usually regular promotions by the airlines themselves or other booking agents, that are offering a deal. They might not be such a steal as the error fares, but it’s a very good alternative how to fly for a bit less.
In our case, I started looking for a flight for October sometime around the beginning of the year, but soon found that it was a bit too early. Most of the good deals are just few months prior to your departure (2-4). I would still recommend watching for good deals from time to time, or creating a price alert for your flight, so you’d get an email each time the price drops/increases. You could do this at skyscanner.com, or airfarewatchdog.com (US departures). This would save you some time and could potentially find you a good deal.
A quick tip, that might not be that apparent – if you are searching for a one-way ticket (same as us), for some reasons it’s often more expensive to buy than a round ticket. There are several reasons for that (most of them I still don’t get), but the important part is – search for round tickets as well. Just be sure to read the cancellation policies for your flight, so you won’t get a fine if you cancel your flight back (or make up a very good excuse – doctor, family, emergency etc…).
If you’re flexible enough, you could go for a open-jaw ticket. Open-jaw means you fly from A to B, but return to a different city then A. These deals might be a lot cheaper, or simply offer a chance to discover another city. They are also good, when you use the round ticket only for a way there, as you do not really care about the way back. For hard core travellers, there is a last option – double open jaw (A->B C->D). It’s worth experimenting a bit with this, it can allow you to see more places while paying less. For example, we’ve found a flight ticket Madrid-Bariloche-Ushuaia-Madrid for almost the same price as round ticket to Bariloche – but with the open jaw one, you can discover the entire Patagonia and simply fly back, without having to go back to the beginning, thus saving a lot of time/resources.
One very important thing to consider – if you want to flight from A to B, do not ever buy a round ticket B->A and plan to skip the first part – 99% percent of the airlines will automatically cancel the rest of the trip, if you skip a flight before.
Error fare flights
Error fare – as the name indicates, is when the airline or reseller simply makes a mistake. It sounds almost unbelievable in this computerized age (to some), but these mistakes do happen. It can be anything from missing fuel surcharge or other fees, that usually a human being behind these computers forgots to add, or any other form of mistake (or a hidden promotion). This can result to indredible deals, such as round ticket to Rio de Janeiro for 235 eur, or New York for 120 eur. These deals are random, so you cannot really count on them – but if you are a travel-o-holic and you just want to go somewhere exotic, this might be perfect for you 🙂 But time is essential here – some deals last for a few days, some only for minutes / hours. Also, you have to pay immediately – if you only make a reservation, it will be most likely cancelled.
For more info, I really recommend reading a bit more here: http://www.flynous.com/error-fare-flight-how-to-find/
WWW – Websites worth watching
Deal-gathering websites
Websites in english:
www.flynous.com – Good page for flight deals from Europe
www.theflightdeal.com – Flights from US
Websites in Czech/Slovak (still worth watching with some translator, if you’re based in EU):
www.cestujlevne.com
www.levneletenky.org
www.jaknaletenky.cz
www.zaletsi.cz
www.letenkyzababku.sk
Flight search engines
Google Flights – Very well designed and extremely customizable search by Google (actually, they bought the excellent Matrix ITA and made it more user friendly)
kiwi.com – Czech startup offering unique and super easy way to search for flights – right on the map. Often connects low-fare airlines, so check on baggage & other fees. I recommend searching through them and then buying the flights directly with airlines, you will save some money, as they charge extra.
Skyscanner – Very popular, found the best prices here. Cannot search for open jaw tickets, as opposed to the other two. Also has a good mobile app
www.pelikan.sk
www.momondo.com