The BEST Cheap Flight Websites NOBODY Talks About (HUGE SAVINGS!)

I've booked hundreds of flights, and in today's video, I'm excited to share with you the free websites that I will always check before booking a ticket. I'll also show you exactly how to use them so you can be confident that you are getting your next flight at the best price. The first website to check out when looking for flight deals is Kayak. Kayak compares flight prices across airlines so you can easily see all of your flight options in one place. What makes Kayak unique is how easy it is to find what they call hacker fares. Hacker fares combine two one-way tickets to find you cheaper options than a traditional round-trip search where you fly both ways with the same airline. In this example, flying from Boston to Los Angeles, we can get there and back on a round-trip flight ticket with JetBlue Airlines for $664. If we scroll down and enable hacker fares, we will see flight options that combine different airlines to give you the best flight. You'll see that you can fly to Los Angeles with Delta and then fly back to Boston with American Airlines, bringing your total to $581 instead of sticking with JetBlue for both legs of the trip and paying a total of $664. Remember to use websites like Kayak, as well as the other ones on this list, to find flight deals, but then always go to the airline's website directly when it comes time to make the booking. So in this example, I would check for the flight details on Kayak and then I would use their links to head to delta.com to book the departure flight to Los Angeles and then head to aa.com to book the flight back to Boston. You always want to book on the official airline's website since online travel agencies like Kayak, Expedia, and Priceline play by their own rules. And if you do book with them, you may be missing out on benefits like free flight changes, full refunds, and priority customer service if anything does go wrong during travel. The next website is an absolute game changer as it's going to show you flight options that could give you two vacations for the price of one. Air Wander is a website that will help you find flights with stopovers. A layover is a connection between flights that lasts less than 24 hours. Typically, we don't like these, but a stopover is a much longer break between flights that lasts for 24 hours or more. When you book a flight with a stopover, you'll stop in another city on the way to your final destination Instead of waiting at the airport for a couple of hours before you catch the next flight, you get to explore the new city for a few days. So you are essentially getting to explore two destinations for the price of one. My parents have used stopover flights many times and most recently spent a few days exploring on a stopover before catching a flight to mainland Portugal for the rest of their vacation. Sometimes you'll find that it's even cheaper to book a flight itinerary that has a stopover for a couple of days in comparison to booking a direct flight. Another website that's going to reveal hidden cities en route to your destination is SkipLagged, but this tool works in a completely different way. SkipLagged is a unique and somewhat controversial flight search tool known for uncovering hidden city fares. This involves booking a flight with a connection and then intentionally not completing the final leg of the trip. For example, if you want to fly from city A to city B, SkipLagged might find a cheaper ticket that goes from city A to city B to city C. You would book this cheaper ticket and then get off at city B and not take the final flight to city C. You can find some incredible flight deals on SkipLagged, but be careful as airlines do not like passengers using this loophole and there have been multiple reports of travelers getting into some legal trouble after using the trick multiple times. And if you do decide to use a hidden city fare, it is crucial not to check any bags as checked luggage will usually be sent to the final ticketed destination. So in our example, that would be city C, which you are not going to. Let us know in the comments if you plan to check a bag on your next flight. I absolutely do not plan to check a bag on my next flight or on any upcoming flights. Something a little different from the other websites on this list is Hopper. Hopper uses historical data to predict the best time to buy a flight. So it's not just a website comparing different flight ticket prices, but instead it's going to give you insights on when to purchase your ticket to get the cheapest deal. This can be super useful if your travel dates and destination are set and you are just trying to decide when to actually make the booking. Hopper claims to predict flight prices with 95% accuracy and its color-coded calendar makes it easy to see when the prices are estimated to be the cheapest. Signing up to receive flight deals is a great alternative to searching for flights on your own. Two tools that I always recommend are FairDrop and Going. FairDrop is excellent for tracking multiple routes and will alert you of significant price drops from your home airport to your chosen destinations. It's a fantastic way to save money by never missing out on a deal. The second service I mentioned is Going, and you may be familiar with its previous name of Scott's Cheap Flights. By signing up, you'll receive alerts for heavily discounted flights departing from your home airport. It's especially useful for flexible travelers who are ready to jump on a good deal since Going is excellent at finding hidden flight deals and even mistake fares. Remember that flights departing from North America are subject to the 24-hour rule, which allows you to cancel the flight and receive a full refund within 24 hours of making the booking. Incredible flight deals do not last long, so if you do see one that you may be able to take, you can always book the flight and then take the next 24 hours to figure out if you can actually take the flight. And if you can't, you can cancel it with a full refund and no penalty, even if it is a non-refundable ticket. I'll leave more information on the 24-hour rule as well as any exceptions that you need to know about in the description. Both FairDrop and Going have free plans that you can try out, but before signing up, it is important to mention that both sites favor U.S. departures. So for my fellow Canadians and European friends, these sites may not be the most useful. A big mistake when looking for flight deals would be to underestimate the power of community-driven platforms like Facebook groups to help you find the best flight deals. These groups often focus on specific airports and give you access to incredible deals that are found by actual people. For instance, YOLE Deals posts top flight offers departing from Montreal, while YYZ Deals focuses on Toronto departures. The community aspect means that actual people are sharing actual deals that they've found. So joining these groups is like having a network of savvy travel friends keeping an eye out for the best deals. Have a quick search on Facebook as I'm willing to bet that there is a group sharing flight deals from your home city. And if you do have access to exclusive booking portals, definitely check these for deals, especially if you're looking for a last-minute ticket. Major credit card issuers like American Express, Capital One, Chase, and Citi have their own portals offering unique deals for last-minute flight, car, and hotel bookings. If you do have access to one of these portals, it is always worth having a look for special deals, especially if you are booking a last-minute ticket. In 2023, I booked a flight from Canada to Europe just a couple hours prior to departure with a fantastic last-minute deal on the Chase booking portal. The flight randomly appeared for 35,000 points instead of the usual 70,000 points for a round-trip ticket. It was the perfect excuse to surprise my mom and dad in Portugal. ITAMatrix is a website that travel agents have been using for ages. And the cool thing is that you can access this tool for free as well. ITAMatrix is the go-to website for travel agents and travelers in search of the best flight deals since it allows you to apply advanced filters to pinpoint the cheapest flights that fit specific dates and preferences. If you are willing to take the time to learn how to use it, it's probably going to be the most comprehensive free flight search tool on the internet. It's important to know that ITAMatrix is going to show you flight itineraries as well as the associated price, but it isn't going to give you a way to actually make the flight booking. A workaround is to copy the itinerary of a flight that you find on ITAMatrix and paste it into a website called bookingwithmatrix.com, and it will give you a link to book the flight. The problem is that it often links you to a third-party booking website like Priceline or Expedia to buy the ticket instead of linking you directly to the airline's website. Due to the advanced options as well as the booking complexity, Google Flights is going to be a better option than ITAMatrix for the majority of travelers. Google Flights and ITAMatrix are both owned by Google and are built off the same technology. So by using Google Flights, you're getting most of the same search capabilities with a much more user-friendly interface. Even the ITAMatrix website suggests you try out Google Flights. Google Flights is much easier to use and you can find fantastic flight options even if you have only a basic knowledge of how to use it. One of the best features of Google Flights is that it gives you the option to book directly with the airline by linking you to the airline's website and then filling in the information for the flight that you already searched. Keep in mind that Google Flights, as well as the other websites that I mentioned in this video, are not going to be showing you flights for every airline. One major airline that does not show up on booking websites is Southwest Airlines. And if you are looking to book a domestic flight within the United States, Southwest might have the cheapest flights. So in some cases, the airline's website is actually the best place to search for flight deals. If you are a regular on the channel, hi, then you probably know that I am personally obsessed with Google Flights and it is the main search engine that I have used for the last decade when searching for flights. I'll put a video up on the screen now that will walk you through exactly how I use different features on Google Flights to consistently find the best flight prices. Don't forget to hit that subscribe button for more travel tips and hacks and I'll catch you in the next video soon. Bye.