What I’m about to share with you is so sacred and special that I almost want to keep it a secret forever: how to find cheap flights to anywhere.

How to Find Cheap Flights

These hacks have saved me so much money, hassle, and stress. My travel possibilities before and after collecting these tricks are night and day. This guide has allowed me to go to more places and see more things than I could ever have done without it. Of course, tricks as special as these come from a lot of trial, error, and adversity when traveling. Ultimately, those experiences led me to these rewarded tips.

I want to help people of all ages get out in the world and experience the wonders of travel. If your travel method is by plane, with these tools, I’m excited to help YOU! After paying attention to trends for a while, you’ll gain a good feel for how the sky system works and YOU’ll be the one teaching your friends how to find the cheapest flights. For now, I’ll help you build the foundation for your travel IQ. Enough hold up; let’s dive in and get you in the sky!

When to Buy Airline Tickets

Let’s kick off the post with a downer: finding the cheapest flight isn’t a save-money-quick scheme. However, after some practice and experience, it can be. Most of the time, finding the right flight price takes some patience. Sometimes, you’ll have to wait at least a week from when you find the flight you want to when you find the right price. Just make sure to leave some time for this process to unfold so you don’t pull the impulse purchase trigger. This weakness is exactly what the airlines want you to do.

With that in mind, certain days of the week are way cheaper than other days to book a flight. This is because of the connotations we give to certain days and our resulting spending behaviors, thus affecting ticket prices. For example, Fridays have behavioral connotations of great moods, lazy work ethic, and susceptibility to book super expensive trips to exotic locations; airlines know this about our species and hike up prices when we act accordingly.

There are more reasons for how each day of the week plays into the price of the flight. For efficiency’s sake, let’s just get into the days of the week when flight prices are the lowest. Overall, the days to look out for when booking your flight are Tuesday and Wednesday, you will likely see lower flight prices if you book on these days. Sunday is also a day to keep your eye on.

When to Check Flight Prices

If you’re wondering when airline tickets are the cheapest and you want to find the best deal on your flight, you need to check the flight prices every single day. There are options to receive email alerts for when flight prices drop. Since we’re trying to save money here why pay for a robot to do something that you’re empowered to do yourself? My final booking pro tip is to use an incognito browser when you’ve found the right flight, and you’re ready to book.

When is the Cheapest Time to Fly?

So, there are days of the week that are cheaper to book, but what about days of the week that are cheaper to board the plane? If your travel plans are flexible then you could be saving a good amount of money by flying on off-peak days. Prime time to board a plane is when commuters are boarding their metal coffins for weekday rush hour. If you’ve ever been in an airport at a busy time, you can imagine that some days can be a little more crowded and costly than others. This all depends on each airline, where you’re going, what time of day, and whether you’re leaving the country or not.

Additionally, paying attention to off-peak seasons for your destination will lead to MUCH cheaper flights than attempting to save money flying on an off-peak day during your destination’s peak season. The cheapest days to fly are similar to booking: Tuesday and Wednesday are universally the cheapest. Saturday sometimes also offers lower prices than others.

How to Use Skyscanner

Finding Airlines on Skyscanner

There is one site I trust more than any other when finding flights: Skyscanner. The site I trust for all types of transportation is Rome2Rio, but this post is only about air travel.

I use Skyscanner to find exactly what I’m flight looking for and to browse price and destination options if I’m still deciding. While on the website, I keep the flights I’m looking to book in a list on my computer. Following my tip for continuously checking for cheaper prices, I always check what Skyscanner cooks up for my search results. Initially, I use their color-coded calendar as a guide for finding my cheapest option, doing my best to avoid any red days.

I always sort my results with the “best” filter. Skyscanner searches and includes “all of the top airlines” in their results. If you’re flying domestically and you want to cover all of your bases, I recommend opening a new tab after seeing your Skyscanner results and searching what Southwest has to offer. *Sometimes* Southwest has better prices for similar flights, especially if you’re planning on checking luggage, so it’s worth the extra search.

Finding Flight Destinations on Skyscanner

Skyscanner gives the option to have different airports in your search. This is super helpful when comparing one place if you’re flying into a location with multiple airports. If my travel plans are flexible and I’m really on the hunt for the best price I can get, I’ll scroll up and down the options for the date I selected. After this, I’ll search the days before and after to see how those prices fluctuate because they almost always do. Each destination is different for landing prices. Checking multiple days is a great way to ensure you’re getting the best price.

Once you choose a flight to book, Skyscanner pulls up multiple sites that offer different ticket prices. Only one of these sites is the site for the actual airline. If the airline is offering the cheapest or one of the cheapest ticket options, I recommend booking through them. If you choose otherwise, just make sure you read the reviews and trust your gut.

How to Use Skiplagged

The second option I’ll use is Skiplagged, a site that finds your destination within layovers. Two things to look out for when using Skiplagged: 1. you cannot check a bag because it will go to the final ticketed destination while you are not. & 2. it is not the most sustainable option as you are potentially leaving seats open on planes, which decreases a plane’s efficiency for fuel per passenger use. For 99% of my travels, I use Skyscanner to find flights and go to the airline to book the flights. That is my top recommendation for how you should go about it.

Avoid Extra Fees on Flights

After you buy your ticket, certain airlines will rack up your total price a significant amount with fees for things that are unavoidable if you want to actually board the plane. This, in my opinion, is absolute rubbish and bad business. I usually avoid these airlines because if they cared about their passengers, they wouldn’t rely on tricking them into spending more money just to compete in the sector. Additionally, the mental math I do to recollect and account for all the additional fees when comparing their flight option to a trusted airline’s is lame.

When an airline like Southwest includes two checked bags on top of what should be complementary universally, like a carry-on, personal item, and drinks on the plane, with the ticket price, it doesn’t matter whether their ticket is more or less than a crook airline’s. You want to fly with a company that cares about their passengers but they are also transparent with their transactions. Stingy airlines only get worse in other countries where there are a lot more of them. Withholding any more passions I have on this topic, the domestic crook airlines to avoid include (from worst to not as bad): spirit, frontier, american, allegiant, and united, (and probably etc). If you’re considering one of these flights on Skyscanner, I recommend opening up a new tab to their website. Check their policies and fees to see what you’ll actually be paying when everything is all said and done.

Be a Frequent Flyer to Save Money

I have a frequent flyer number with every airline that I’ve flown. Why? Because I was going to fly their miles whether or not I was going to log them. By logging them, I’ve passively racked up savings at absolutely no cost. Airlines have programs like this to incentivize you to fly with them more often. If their sorcery doesn’t phase you, and you’re just flying with them because their flight was the cheapest, then this is a great hack! I also keep the apps for the main airlines I fly on my phone to have my information handy when I’m away from a computer. There are different ways to add your frequent flyer number to your flight, so just ensure you’re logging it one way or another.

I hope these tips were groundbreaking for you! I would suggest copying the link to this post to your notes or somewhere handy so you can come back to it when you need it.

Drop your favorite airline in the comments!