One of the biggest costs when traveling can be the flight. Finding cheap flights is really important if you want to save money and especially if you have children. Traveling with a family means that the days of just buying one or two tickets are over, and all of a sudden your flight costs double with two children! 😭 Here are 7 key ways to save some money and find those cheap flights to get back up in the air and on your dream vacation.
Search Cheap Flights Using a Flight Search Engine
First step to finding cheap flights is to use a flight search engine. These handy websites search “all” of the prices of airline tickets from your local airport to your destination. This is a great way to see different options for prices and flight times.
I put “all” in quotations because they really don’t search all airlines. I have found in recent years that they have added more companies, so it’s improving. One big airline that isn’t on these flight search engines is Southwest Airlines. If you are traveling in the United States, be sure to check their website to see if you can get a better price.
There are many website choices out there to search for cheap flights, and they are all pretty similar. You will just need to poke around and find the one that works for you. Some popular sites are CheapOair, Kayak, Google Flights, Skyscanner, etc… I recently stumbled on Kiwi and it is quickly becoming my favorite! There are so many options! I’ll highlight some of those options as we continue through this post.
Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. When clicking on the links and booking travel, I receive a small commission with no extra costs for you. Please note, I only recommend brands I actually use and trust.
Set Fare Alerts
If you aren’t seeing the prices you want for a destination, set up a fare alert. With many of the flight search engines, you can set up these alerts by just providing your email address. After you search up a specific flight, there is usually a spot where you can select “track prices” or “set up a price alert.” By selecting this, you will get emails when a price either goes up or goes down helping you purchase at the lowest price.
One advantage that Google Flights has is that it will tell you if the price you are seeing is a low price, average price or high price. This helps me plan if I want to wait to buy my ticket or need to act quickly.
Check the Airlines Website
If I am searching for a specific flight, I will sometimes do a quick check directly on the airline’s website. Every once in a while, I will find better deals or better times for my flights on their site. This doesn’t always work, but to me it’s worth the few extra minutes, just to check!
Be Flexible With Travel Days
If you don’t have specific days you need to travel, being flexible with your travel days can be a huge advantage. Flight prices can change drastically from one day to the next and you could save a few hundred dollars by leaving a day later or earlier.
My favorite tool is on Kiwi’s search engine. They have a really good pricing table. You put in the flight you would like to book including the days and locations. Then on the right hand side of the results, you will see the “pricing table.” Click on this and this is what pops up:
As you can see, you can find the dates that will give you the best prices and the dates you want to avoid.
Another way you can also view flexible deals is by clicking on the departure or arrival date. You will see something like this:
You can select the departure and arrival dates that are the least expensive. First click on the departure date that has the best price for you. Then, click in the little search bar underneath return. This will then change the prices in the calendar according to the departure date you selected.
If you only have a few days of flexibility at the beginning or end of your trip, you can put in the dates you prefer and then select the +/- 1, +/- 3, or +/- 5 day options to your departure or arrival date.
Search Nearby Airports
Depending on where you live, it might make sense to check nearby airports for prices. You can do this a few different ways. You can either just put in the airports that you know or you can select an option for the search engine to look at nearby airports within a specified distance.
During one of my recent searches on Kiwi, I discovered that there are some cheaper flight options out of Eindhoven, Netherlands compared to Amsterdam. I was surprised. I figured I would always be flying out of Amsterdam or a nearby major airport like Brussels, but Kiwi found some great flights there that were 60-100 euros cheaper. Since a train ticket to Eindhoven is the same cost as going to Amsterdam and only an additional 45 minutes for us, this makes a lot of sense to me.
Search Cheap Flights by Date, Not Location
One of the best ways to get a deal is by being flexible on where you want to travel. Did you know that you can search cheap flights by putting in dates, and it will populate the cheapest flight locations?
For example, I put in Dec. 27th – January 6th and my departure airport from Amsterdam. In the arrival location I put Anywhere.
These are the results (there are more options you cannot see in the photo):
You can filter the search results by flight popularity or by cheapest flight.
Sign up for Going.com (formerly Scott’s Cheap Flights)
Lastly, sign up for Going.com alerts. At Going.com or you might have heard of Scott’s Cheap Flights (It’s the same company.), you can sign up for free alerts for flights. You give them your local airport and when great flight deals pop up, you get an email!
They have a few different plans depending on what you want. You can sign up for free which is great! However, you won’t get the best deals in your email box right away. With the free account, you get them but a little later than premium members.
If you sign up for the Premium account (maybe a great Christmas present idea 😉) you are the first to know when great deals happen on economy bookings. You will also get alerts on mistake fares from your departure airport. This is when airlines offer really really low prices to select locations. Like significantly lower than normal. A premium account is $49 dollars a year.
Want to fly in style? Going.com also has an Elite account where you get alerts on Economy, Premium Economy, Business Class and First Class tickets. They even offer alerts on Points and Miles deals. The Elite account is $199 a year.
Summary
Don’t pay high prices for flights! There are so many ways to find a great deal. Using these 7 tips, start searching for a cheap flight for your next getaway. You might just find that you can afford that trip after all.
Want to learn more? Check out these recent posts for more family travel tips:
- 5 Simple Factors To Choose The Best Family Vacation Destination
- How To Start Traveling Full Time With Kids
- How to Start Traveling With A Family: Make a Goal
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