my-anasa.com

How to findcheap flights

January 2019

When you travel you try to get the best deals. Starting fromthe flight tickets. The money saved can stay in your pocketor you can use them at your destination for some specialactivity. Maybe you can choose an hotel upgrade or a greatrestuarant for dinner. Well, it doesn't matter. The importantthing is to find cheap flights. This is my philosophy. I canalso travel in business or first class, but why to spend a lotof money if I can benefit of some special offers?

In case you can't plan your trip in advance, you have to paymore. Purchase a ticket at the last moment can be quiteexpensive. But if you apply my advice you can save moneyand fly to your destination for an excellent rate. Let’sproceed step by step. First of all, I want to focus on lastminute cheap flights so you will be able to leave for yourholidays very fast and without spending all your salary. Then I will give you some advice about the method to findcheap flights in general and I will conclude the post withfirst class tickets. Read till the end to know the best way toget low rates.

Before to enjoy the guide, don't forget to follow my blog formore travel stories and tips: my-anasa.com.

LAST MINUTE CHEAP FLIGHTS

Now you are in hurry and you expect to pay a huge amountof money to buy your ticket. Don’t worry, you have achance to find cheap flights also at the very last moment.How? With a few steps online.

WHERE TO LOOK AND HOW TO BOOK

At the check-in desk at the airport, there are not anymoredeals for you. They ask you the full rate and the price isvery expensive. Too much. What can you do? Switch onyour computer first of all. The entire process will be online.I suggest you book always in advance, at least 50 or 60days before the departure, but if you can’t, pay attention tothe next lines. A couple of months earlier guarantee youthe best rates.

Once you know your destination go on Skyscanner.com. Itis the best search engine for plane tickets. If in the citythere are more airports, choose “any”. For instance, if yougo to New York, select “New York any”. In this way, theengine will show you all the connections to the city, in allthe local airports. This is the first step to find cheap flights.You can also tick the box to “add nearby airports”. Thesystem will scan all the closest airports. You can do thesame research on Kayak.

BOOK A SEAT ON A CHARTER FLIGHT

If you search for last minute cheap flights the best optionisn’t a low-cost airline. Their strategy is to take advantageof the passengers in need. Start to scrap the list of charterflights. Consider that tour operators book entire planes andthey need to make it full. There are always excess seatsand they sell them reducing the price. You don’t have tobuy a holiday package, but only the flight. For this reason, Isuggest you check on Thomas Cook and TUI fly if yourdestinations are Florida and the Caribbean.

Amazon bestsellers

GET DEALS TO YOUR MOBILE

Are you in a hurry but you can wait for a few days?Subscribe to get directly in your email or on your WhatsAppthe updated offers. You will be updated on flash sales, onnew flight launches and also on last-minute discounts. Thishelps you to find your cheap flights. Skyscanner,Cheapflights, Travelzoo, and HolidayPirates are thewebsites that you need to explore to reach the goal. Thefirst three platforms update you via email, meanwhile, thelast one sends you the news via WhatsApp. Don’t forget tocheck the social profiles of these search engines on Twitterand Facebook to find the deals for the cheap flights.

KEEP YOURSELF FREE ON TUESDAY

The last advice to catch cheap flights is to search them onTuesday. Buy the ticket on the same day, because the last-minute deals are more convenient. Airlines prefer this dayof the week to sell all remaining seats. Especially becauseat that point they know if the planes are full or empty forthe weekend. The sales appear on Monday, but thecompetitors need one day to set the offers.

These steps will take you to purchase the last-minutecheap flights.

CHEAP FLIGHTS: HOW TO FIND THEM

Now you know how to find last-minute cheap flights butthere are some rules that you need to keep in mind always.Also when you book your ticket in advance. Let’s go to seewhat you need to do to have the best deal all for you. Youcan easily save money.

KEEP YOUR RESEARCH SECRET

Each time you start research on the internet, your data areregistered, especially from the engines. So if you typesome information about the flight you want and then youdo the same research on different websites, the prices willbe higher. Why? They already know that you need a certainticket. Your need becomes their strategy to earn money. Toavoid this problem you don’t need to do anythingparticular. It is enough to keep your research top secret.Browse in incognito.

Don’t worry, it is not a hard issue. If you use GoogleChrome or Safari hit the Command (Control for the desktopcomputer), Shift and “N”. If you use Mozilla Firefox orInternet Explorer instead of “N” press “P”, the other stepsof the procedure are the same. In any case in the menubar, you find the voice private browsing or incognito.Nobody will recognize you and nobody will register yourresearch. You will see the real prices and not the increasedones.

SELECT THE BEST ENGINES

If you want to book cheap flights, you need to search themin the proper places. Some platforms show you the highestrates, meanwhile, others propose you low prices. Here youcan find a list of some good websites to use. If you knowothers, just add them in comments.

Skyscanner

AirFare Watchdog

Momondo

CheapOair

AirWander

JetRadar

Kiwi

Google Flights (It doesn’t give you the cheapest prices, butit is really useful to compare the dates)

You should keep in mind that the list of the airlines on thesewebsites is not complete. So I suggest you, especially forregional and low-cost companies to go directly to theirofficial pages.

CHOOSE THE PROPER DAY TO BOOK

Generally, there is the cheapest day to fly and it helps youto find the airline tickets best price. If you search on theinternet you will find different opinions and mostly the sitesindicate Tuesday as the perfect day. Be careful, because itis not true. It is correct that fly during weekdays is moreconvenient many times, but each company has its ownpolicy. So there are deals to travel on Saturday or Sundayas well. So what to do? Don’t worry, there is a solution.

The procedure you must follow to find cheap flights is easyand immediate. Go on the search engine, for instance,Skyscanner. Then type the departure date, don’t considerthe return ticket for a while. Select “one-way” option. Doyour research for an entire month. In this way, you will findout what day is the cheapest one to move. Once youcollected the information you can adjust your search. Don’tforget to do the same for the return date so you will knowhow to manage your round trip.

This tip is valid to find the airline tickets best price. Keep inmind that if you have to add more days to your stay just tohave a cheap rate, you will increase the accommodationcost. Is this convenient? The answer is up to you. If you useKiwi.com or Hopper you can track the changes in theprices.

USE YOUR MILES

As I mentioned in my travel planner guide, if you have inyour wallet a loyalty card issued by an airline company or acredit card with a cashback plan, you can travel for free. Itdepends on the miles present on your account balance.Maybe you will get a discount or you will purchase theticket without any expense. Also, the main hotel chainspropose cards that give you miles to spend on your airlinetickets. In this case, check what you have and visit theprograms web pages. Pay attention: the number of milesfollows the same policy of the prices, so check the best dayto travel. The cheapest flight can be free for you.

ViaBuy

PREFER LOW-COST AIRLINES

For the last-minute tickets, the low-cost airline is not thebest choice, but they are if you book in advance. Aroundthe world, there are many airlines working with budgetdeals. They generally propose you very low rates, likealmost nothing, but there are some compromises. In fact,to reduce the prices they put more seats and you have lessspace for your legs. Then they don’t give you food anddrinks for free on board. You may pay also for the suitcase.To have a better treatment they offer some privileges towho wants to pay more.

The convenience has to be check up to your needs.Anyway, I always suggest checking the low-cost airlines.Because maybe you book a flight for a short trip and youcan do some sacrifices to save more money. Last thingabout this step. The airport location is most of the timesthe less close to the destination, so think about the transferand the time that you will need. You will go straight tocheap flights.

TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THE MISTAKES

Do you want to find easily and immediately the airlinetickets best price? Search online for the mistakes. Often theoffices of the companies publish online the wrong rate.There are many reasons, but what is important is theresult. If you catch the error and buy at that rate, you havethe right to travel without any other costs. They can’tchange, as the law says, the price after the ticket is sold.The mistakes are on the official website and they are yourluck in the research of cheap flights.

How can you find them? You are thinking to stay 24 hoursonline without sleep hoping to catch the error… No, youdon’t need this. You can just connect to some platformsthat search for you. Then you need to be lucky. Visit AirFareWatchdog and Secret Flying. On the first one, the updatesare in real-time. Use the same search criteria alreadydescribed in previous steps.

SLIT CONNECTING FLIGHTS

Are you searching for connecting flights? Maybe to go toyour destination it is necessary to change the plane e inanother airport or country. Never search for all tracks. Splitthem. If you book each flight, also with a return ticket, youwill find better deals. It is also possible to save money justchanging the airline company. If you do this you are freer tochoose the best options, according to the price and to yourconvenience. It gives you more chances to find the cheapflights you want.

Booking.com

Keep in mind that you need to work more on hours ofarrival and departure. This because you have maybe tomove and to catch the connection with a different airline. Ifyou use a low-cost company and a traditional one checkthe arrival airport. It can happen that they use differentlocations and you have to organize the transfer on time tocatch the other flight. You can in case consider also astopover to see another place.

CHOOSE THE DESTINATION CAREFULLY

To find the airline tickets best price you have to focus alsoon budget companies. As I already wrote they offer you agood rate for different reasons. One of them is the airportused. In the big cities, there are more locations, withdifferent distance between the city and the airport.Anyway, if this looks a sacrifice, you should consider onemore element. There are different tracks to get to yourdestination for less money. This is an important step in theresearch of cheap flights.

You are thinking…WHAT?!?! I am going to explain you twointeresting options. The first one is that around the regionof your destination there are smaller cities or townconnected with their airports. It can cost less to go thereand then to move by car, bus or train to the place whereyou want to stay. The second aspect is made by theconnections. For instance, if you move from the USA to Italyand you stop in Spain to change flight you have morechances to save money. In fact, airlines have some trackthat they need to promote and they offer good deals. Orsimply using different airlines and prefer a longer trip canbecome an economic benefit for you. It happens especiallyif you choose airlines without a hub in the departure orarrival countries.

SOME RISKS

In this way, there are always some risks. Be carefulbecause if you book a connecting flight with differentcompanies and you miss the plane to continue your trip,you will lose your money. That is why it is good to preferdedicated search engines. Some of them help you to usedifferent airlines in combination and to purchase your ticketin the same order. In this case, your money is guaranteedand you can get refunded in case of problems. Thisbecause they sold you the deal for the whole trip. Whenyou choose the website read their policies. Otherwise, thecheap flights become very expensive.

PREVENT THE HIDDEN CITY RISK

While people were searching for their cheap flights, theydiscovered the “hidden city” connections. It means thatairlines are going to hide the flight connections becausethey are cheaper than the direct flight. Anyway with thesteps described you won’t have problems to find them. Theproblem concerns the risks and you need to be aware ofthis.

What are the risks? To not have the luggage checkeddirectly for all flights, so you need to claim it at your arrivaland then do again the check-in. You may not be allowed offthe plane in case the flight is continuing to its finaldestination. You may lose the connection without havingany assistance from the airline. There is no solution, butthat is why I suggest to choose carefully the website andespecially to check the conditions.

BOOK ALL FLIGHTS IN THE SAME MOMENT

Did you find the cheap flights? Will you use the samecompany? Buy the tickets altogether. If there is no chanceto have a lower rate in splitting the flights, buying each ofthem separated it will cost more. Companies prefer to sellthe round trip, otherwise, they propose a higher rate. Itdoesn’t make sense. Try to do the research through themulti-city flights. For example, a company can offer moreroutes together for an interesting rate. In Europe, it is quitecommon with Turkish Airlines. The same does VirginAtlantic. Include regional passes, because there is acooperation between local companies with the big onesand it costs less to mix the flights among them. The sameairline will issue the ticket.

CHECK LOCAL AIRLINES

Never forget to check the proposals of the regional airlines.They are small but they have connections and they maypropose low rates. Especially in the countries wheretourism is now so much developed. It is difficult to knowthem and to find a complete list, but searching on Googleyou will access to their web pages. It is also hard to findthem in the main cheap flights’ search pages. The smallcompanies can be a surprise, it is good to check every timeyou need to travel.

BOOK THE TRIP WHEN YOU KNOW THE DATE

It is another important rule to follow for who is searchingfor the cheap flights. When you decide the dater for yourtravel start immediately to check the flights. Also purchaseas soon as possible the tickets. All the steps will help you tofind quickly the best deal but keep always in mind thatapproaching the departure day the rates will increase inany case. It can be useful, if you don’t have fixed dates, tosearch for the best one to travel, the one that has the lowerprice. So you will let the search engine decide for you. Itcan be convenient.

PAY ATTENTION TO THE CURRENCY

The last tip about how to find easy and immediatelyconcern the currency. Booking form different countries youcan see different prices. That is why you should considerchecking the different currencies on the same website.Sometimes it is not a simple conversion and also itdepends on the conditions apply for certain countries. Youcan save again a bit of money. Be sure to have a credit cardthat doesn’t apply fees for the transactions in foreigncurrency. It is part of the steps to find the cheap flights.

CHEAP FLIGHTS: FIRST CLASS

Sometimes there are discounted first-class plane tickets,you can fly inside the USA for less than 1,000 USD orinternationally for less than 2,000 USD. How can you findthe cheapest flights as a first-class traveler? I like luxuryand for that reason, I try to search good deals. Why spendmore than enough? Here I want to share an efficientstrategy that I learned and applied.

ONE-WAY TICKET

The first-class cheap flights are usually not many, so if yousearch for a round trip you will reduce the chances. You cango to your destination with a company and go back withanother one. On domestic flights, it is not common to find aticket that costs more than half of the round trip. Searchingfor a flight don’t be surprised if the cost is around 100 USDmore than a coach seat. Of course on domesticconnections.

DEALS ON YOUR MOBILE

If you are not in hurry, I suggest you search first-classcheap flights on websites able to send you alerts. So youwill be among the first to know the deals. The alerts areimportant because the discounts are short living. You canfind them also on the Twitter feed of TheFlightDeal. My tipis to check and subscribe to FirstClassFlyer.com and toFlyerTalk.

PAY ATTENTION TO THE SMALL AIRLINES

In recent years also the smallest companies improved theirfirst-class setting. They also propose good deals for thecheap flights, so check them. So companies from Norwayand Poland, for example, offers very low prices to travelfrom Europe to the USA. They have often new aircraft witha well equipped first class. The service is very wellorganized and complete. I have to confirm anyway that thebig companies are doing something more, also becausethey have to win the competition, especially on first-class.

BECOME A LOYALTY CARD MEMBER

Do you want first-class cheap flights? Well, subscribe to theairlines’ loyalty cards. Why? Because some of them areoffering discounts on your first-class ticket purchase. Forexample, British Airways reserve too AARP members 400USD of discount for business and first-class tickets.Lufthansa, Swiss, Austrian, and Brussels Airlines give to thecards’ holders 15% off. If you fly from Europe to SouthAmerica the discount is up to 30%. Cathay Pacific recognizeto the loyalty cards members 20% off. There are manyairlines that give discounted prices to their loyal customers.

CHECK THE UPGRADE COST

One you bought your economy-class ticket you canpurchase your upgrade. Some airlines offer you discountedoptions. So adding a limited amount of money you can flyin first-class. The American company United do that,meanwhile, Delta let you switch to a first-class fare on thesame itinerary with no change fee. If you see a good first-class fare open up after you book, call and lock it in.Austrian Airline allows you to make an offer for an upgrade.The best offers are accepted. This means you can changeclass spending a small amount of money more.

USE YOUR FREQUENT FLYER MILES

The biggest airlines in the USA give the chance to theirfrequent flyers to book a one-way ticket for half price usingmiles. This allows you to save money for a first-class seat.Don’t forget that your miles, for all the airlines in the worldlet you get discounts, mixing miles and money. Also, youcan use your miles, if they are not enough for the entireticket, for a class upgrade. Your first-class cheap flights areso easy to get.

PLAN YOUR ITINERARY

Don’t exclude any option for your travel. Check all theairport close to your destination, because the rates can bedifferent also for the first class. You can fly in first-classspending less money and than adding a cheap coach ticketto reach your destination. This trick allows you to use thebest airline benefits, just changing the airport. Of course, itdepends on the country where you go.

If you follow these steps you will easily find first-classcheap flights. Now book your seats and enjoy your journey!

I hope this guide was helpful for you. Visit my blog for moretips and send me your email address if you want to beupdated.

Write me to: myanasa@virgilio.it

my-anasa.com