Buying flights at full fare is a thing of the past. Now-a-days with so many error fares, booking engines which let you search for months and various destinations with one click, plus awesome deals and promos by airlines.. you simply have too many hacks to choose from before you make your purchase. If you plan well and do proper research, you will most certainly end up saving a lot of moolah on your flight tickets.
To make things easier for those who are new to travel hacking, I have inputs from 7 avid travelers who have shared their top airfare hacks exclusively for my readers.
Travel Hacking 101 – 7 ways to Book a Cheap Flight
Jones from Jones Around The World
There are a ton of different Facebook pages / websites like this, you just got to look out for them, and follow them closely! You’ll be surprised the deals you can find.
Stefania from EverySteph
One of my favourite travel hacks for finding cheap flights is using the Holiday Pirates website. The website is awesome because the authors publish daily lots of deals for flight, holiday packages, and hotels. I recently used the website for booking my plane ticket to the Philippines. I read the news about Qatar Airways having a promotion, and in fact I was able to find a return flight from Barcelona to Manila for 440 euros (economy class), which is quite cheap compared to the normal prices.
Holiday Pirates is the English version; there is also an American version for travelers departing from the US (Travel pirates), an Italian, French, Spanish versions and so on. You can also register for free for receiving fare errors alerts on whatsapp, which is awesome cause these offers usually are unbelievable but only last a couple of hours!
Jo from WanderWithJo
We all know Air Asia has some crazy good deals for traveling within South East Asia. However, how many of you have heard of the Air Asia ASEAN pass? Not many, I bet. For just $115, I took a total of 10 flights, within Asia, across 3 countries – Can you beat that? It is ideal for someone who has a month to spare and is very flexible on dates and even destinations. Click here to read my detailed piece on the pass, how to book it, pros/con’s and the exact route I followed.
Edwina from TravelingGerman
Sometimes, it’s difficult to find a direct flight, especially if you’re on a budget. You’re stuck with a layover. Instead of getting frustrated spending hours at a loud, uncomfortable airport, try turning your layover into a stopover: A flight that has an overnight transit, allowing you to get out of the airport and explore. Many airlines allow you to do this at minimal or no additional cost. Some even promote their stopovers actively and will offer anything from free tours to discounted or free hotel stays.
If you have the time to add an extra day to your journey, this is a great way to see new places, especially places you may otherwise never have visited!
How to find these stopovers: Use a flight search website like Kayak or Skyscanner, filter for flights with 1+ stops, and sort by duration showing flights with the longest duration first. See what stopover cities come up that you like, then go to the website of the airline that flies that route and search for their stopover offers. Make sure you understand their rules if you’re relying on the airline for a free hotel, for example – some will only offer this if no faster route is available.
Danielle Desir from The Thought Card
One of my favorite travel hacks for flights are error fares. Error fares or mistake fares are flight pricing glitches which means rock bottom prices – think better than a discount and deeper savings than a sale!
The only catch with error fares is that you have to act fast. Once an airline realizes that there’s a glitch, they’ll pull the plug and prices will go back to normal in an instant. Also, since there’s a chance that the airline may not honor an error fare, always wait for a confirmation email before making any plans.
Error fares can happen at anytime and flights can depart from anywhere, so it’s very important to be on the lookout. I recently booked an error fare from New York City to Lisbon, Portugal for $330 USD round-trip (usually $900-$1,1000 USD). Now that’s a steal!
Cameron & Natasha from TheWorldPursuit
Awhile back I signed up for email updates from SecretFlying.com. Every day I get notifications for secret airline deals and even error fares in whatever region I choose. There are fantastic deals to be had on it and it is all sent right to my inbox. I recently scored a good deal when a flight deal showed up from Istanbul>>Seychelles>>Joburg for $450 with Etihad Airways. We were already looking for a good deal into South Africa, but now we were going to get a long and luxurious layover in the Seychelles for cheaper than just a direct flight!
Danielle Ditzian from LikeRidingABicycle
My favourite travel hack is using Skyscanner. Not only can you search prices by month, or even look at the cheapest month to go somewhere, but you can also search by country. I absolutely adore this function, as I’m not always picky as to where I land in a country, and would rather find the cheapest route. When I was in Europe and wanting to fly to Thailand, what I did was search every country in Europe destined to Bangkok, and then used the cheap European airlines to fly within Europe so as to save money. It worked awesomely, and instead of flying direct from London to Bangkok, I got to stop in Sweden and see a friend – while saving money!
So have you ever bagged any crazy awesome deals on airfare? Tell me how in comments below 🙂
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The most important “hack” is to research destinations and routes, to really know if that is a good deal. I start searching well before booking to see how prices fluctuation, avoid peak season, and know that I got the best deal when booking.
My favorite is also the Skyscanner app – love the “everywhere” option which offers cheapest flights everywhere from your closest airport 🙂 Airfare Watch Dog is a great page to follow. Thanks for putting this together – some fab tips!
Love all these. I also love Skyscanner if I don’t know where I am going I can use the “Everywhere” option and then bam – destination picked. Error fares like Danielle said are also amazing! I love finding those
I stalk ALL the websites haha. Skyscanner, Scott’s Flights, Hops, etc. I have a travel alert set for almost all of them hahahaha. I can get a bit obsessive trying to find cheap flights.
Great resource for travelers looking to get some good deals. It’s amazing the places you can go on the cheap if you look. So many people think travel has to be expensive.. but it sure doesn’t!
Oh my gosh! So many amazing tips! I just joined the FB Flightwatch and I am about to head of to SE Asia with a one-way ticket, so I’ll definitely be looking into the Air Asia pass. I flew all Air Asia the last time I was there! Thanks for sharing such amazing tips! Xx