How To Find CHEAPER Flights (7 Flight Hacks Airlines Don't Want You To Know About)

So oftentimes with frequent flyer points when searching for reward flights, availability can be an issue, especially when it comes to premium cabin classes like business class. This means that sometimes we just have to pay for our flights in cash, and if you're someone who doesn't focus on earning credit card reward points, then unfortunately paying cash is the only option that you have. But that doesn't mean that you have to overpay for your flights, and chances are you've actually already overpaid for them before. I know I have previously. So that's why in today's video, I'm going to run through seven different tips and tricks on how you can find cheaper airfares. And make sure you stay to the last one because the last method is a guaranteed way of how you can secure yourself cheaper international airfares without having to do any of the legwork yourself. These tips are going to be a combination of different search engines and online tools to just general tips to use when searching for your next flights. One of the websites was even sued by United Airlines themselves for exploiting loopholes in the airline industry. Now whenever searching for flights, I always recommend visiting three different websites or search engines to ensure that you're getting the best price possible. And I highly recommend you always start with Google Flights. Now Google Flights is a search engine that essentially aggregates flights and prices across most airlines. The most basic way to use it is to simply plug in your flight details. So in this instance, let's look for one-way flights from Melbourne to London departing on the 12th of November. It'll always show you the best flights at the top. So in this instance, the best deal would be to fly with China Airlines to London. You can also add a ton of different filters to enhance your search results, such as filtering by airline alliances, price maximums, departure and arrival times, and more. Select the itinerary that you like and then Google will provide you with several options as to where you can book that airline. In this instance, the cheapest that we can find is for around $750 one-way. It is important to note that Google Flights is simply a search engine, it's not a booking engine. So you'll still end up booking directly with the airline or a travel agent themselves. Now one of my favorite features of Google Flights is the date grid, which essentially shows you the optimal pricing based on different departure times or arrival dates. Google will even do all of the analysis for you and highlight the best days in terms of price in green. What you'll notice is that the more flexible you can be with your travel dates, the more potential savings you can rack up. Leaving even one day later or one day earlier can save you hundreds of dollars on your airfare costs. You'll also have the ability to search up to five different arrival and departure airports, which if you didn't know which airport you depart from can mean a huge difference in the amount of taxes that you'll need to pay on your airfare. For example, if you wanted to fly from London to Dubai, then you're going to pay over $400 in taxes, fees, and fuel surcharges if you were to travel in business class, as opposed to just around $30 in taxes and fees departing from Istanbul. I did a full video talking about this a few weeks ago, so check out that video if you're interested. So once you've found the cheapest flights possible, keep that tab open and open a new one and then plug in the next website, which is Momondo. Now Momondo is another powerful flight comparison tool and I kind of compare this to Skyscanner, except I find Momondo to be even better. It's a powerful fare comparison tool that not only compares the prices from airlines themselves, but from a variety of different reputable online brokers. I personally use this over Skyscanner because I find that it often covers more booking agencies and displays more results. If you're searching for a return flight, then they're also looking to different carriers for your departure and return flights. Mixing and matching airlines is another great way to save money on your airfare costs. These days you might find that it's actually cheaper to fly from Melbourne to London with one airline, and then back with another airline. Now the next step in the process is to search for those exact same dates that we found in Google Flights, except this time using Momondo. So in this case I found those exact same flights off Google for around $50 less through another travel agency. Once we've searched for our flights with Momondo, let's search for those exact same flights with the last online search engine tool, which is SkipBlanked. This site's claim to fame is that you can search for hidden city tickets. These are tickets where you buy a flight with a layover in the city that you actually want to arrive in. This was the website that was sued by United Airlines themselves, but they ended up having that case thrown out. If you're confused with how it works, let's say that you wanted to get from airport A to airport C, but the flight also has a layover in airport B, which is actually the destination that you wanted to get to originally. Oftentimes these tickets can be cheaper than buying a direct flight from airport A to airport B. Now whilst I find the concept of hidden city tickets pretty awesome, I've found that it generally only applies to people who live in the United States. In Australia, because we're so geographically far from everyone, there's really very few hidden city tickets that we can take advantage of. Regardless of this, SkipBlanked's search function still does a really good job of combining flights from different airlines to find you the best price possible. So the last step in the process is to pretty much plug in those exact same dates into SkipBlanked to see if we can find even cheaper airfares. So in this case, through SkipBlanked, I wasn't able to find any cheaper flights than what I found on Momondo, but now at least we've verified that we've most likely found the cheapest flights possible. So if you're happy from everything from here, then you can go ahead and book that airfare now. Now I will preface that if you're booking your flights through an online travel agent, then there definitely are some disadvantages as opposed to booking directly with an airline themselves. Some of the disadvantages that you might run into are sometimes there's hidden fees and charges that could catch you off guard if you aren't careful. And secondly, customer service can oftentimes be an issue, causing delays in resolving flight disruptions and flight cancellations. And finally, you might not be able to access your loyalty program benefits, hindering points accrual and perks. Now the pros of using an online travel agent is really the convenience and the range of choices that you have, allowing you to mix and match different airlines to optimize your flights such that you're paying the lowest amount possible. Personally, I've used both online travel agents and booked directly with airlines themselves, and I haven't really run into any issues so far, so it's really just a personal preference. But in my opinion, if you really want the cheapest airfare possible, then more than likely you're going to have to book through an online travel agent. The next website to use to help you find cheaper flights is another one from Google, except this time it's the Google Explore function. This is when you're not locked into a specific country that you need to arrive in. Let's say you want to get from Melbourne to Europe, but you're flexible in terms of which country you arrive into. Simply type in Europe as your destination in Google Explore, and you can very easily see the cheapest country to fly into. I personally do this all the time when I'm doing my Europe planning. The most expensive flight is always getting into Europe. After that, there are plenty of budget airlines that you can fly with to get around Europe. I can't tell you how many $50 Ryanair flights I've taken from one European country to another. And if you don't want to fly, then how about just hopping on the Eurostar and taking the train to your next destination. If you want to save money, which day of the week you book your departure airline flights for really does matter. Now I understand that this can be tough, especially if you have limited time off. However, try to plan as far in advance as possible, because sometimes you can save up to $300 to $500 simply for departing on Thursday, as opposed to Friday. Rather than picking your dates first, try to see when it's actually cheapest to travel, and then work backwards from there. Overall, Friday and Sunday are usually the most expensive days to fly out, whilst Tuesday, Wednesday, and Saturday are the absolute cheapest days. The next tip is kind of like an urban myth as to whether or not it actually helps you find cheaper airfares, and that's to clear your browser cookie history. Many industry experts will swear by this saying that airlines and online travel agencies will drop a cookie into your browser history when you first search for that very first flight, and then begin to put up the price when you return to their page, kind of making you feel pressured to buy immediately before the fares go up even higher. Others will swear that there's no hard evidence, and that this is just a function of supply and demand that airlines use. Prices can always change minute to minute based on a variety of different factors, from past bookings, demand for particular dates, remaining available seats, and the probability of that airline selling out a capacity later. Nevertheless, it can't hurt to try clearing the cookies or opening a new incognito browser when you search for your next airfare flight. The last method is guaranteed to find you cheaper flights if you've got a little bit of patience, and that's by using fare alerts. So instead of constantly searching across the web trying to find the cheapest flights possible, signing up for fare alerts for the specific flight that you're looking for is a great strategy. It'll save you time and takes the guesswork out of the equation. There are a number of different services that Australians can use to monitor price fares that will actually notify you as to when the price matches or falls below the target that you're looking for. Qantas has its own fare alert feature that you can use for absolutely free. After you've searched for your destination and dates, you can select to watch this trip. From there, simply enter in your own email where the fare alerts will arrive and you'll receive updates. In Google Flights, you can also turn on the track flights feature, and as long as you're logged into your Google account, then you'll begin receiving email updates on price changes. Alternatively, you can also subscribe to fare alert websites such as iwantthatflight.com or inowthepilot.com, which will essentially scrape the web and find cheap flight deals across multiple international destinations. Simply sign up and set up your alerts and you'll receive an email update when those deals are found. So those are the seven different ways of how you can find cheaper flights for your next holiday destination. Let me know in the comments down below if there's any other tips and tricks that you guys personally use that I haven't covered in this video, and if you found anything in the video useful or just enjoyed the content, make sure to hit that like button down below and subscribe for more content like this in the future. Now if you're interested in how you can save even more money on your next airfare flights, make sure you check out this video right here.