Secret Flight Hacks Airlines Don't Want You To Know (Huge Savings)

You are probably overpaying for flights, and it's not really your fault. Airlines are hoping that you will, and in fact, they've gotten really good at making sure you pay too much. But there are five key ways to beat airlines at their own game, and I've used all of them to save over $50,000 on airplane tickets, which has enabled me and my family to travel to places that we only ever dreamed of. So in this video, I'm going to break down five easy and totally legit flight booking hacks that airlines do not want you to know, and number four is seriously like a real-life cheat code. Hey guys, Nick here from Away Together. I've taken hundreds of flights in my life, and in our first six years of marriage, my wife Allie and I traveled all over the world together, largely thanks to the five tips that I'm going to show you today. If I had to pay full price for all those airplane tickets, we would rarely be leaving our home country. Make sure you stick around to the end for a very exclusive limited time opportunity. We're going to start basic and get more advanced as we go. We've got some ground to cover, so let's dive in. So when a lot of people search for flights, they go directly to the website of the airline they want to fly, and they pop in their airports and their very specific dates, and they kind of just take the results that they get. What I do and what I want you to do is stop that. Stop that right now. Instead, you're going to go to Google Flights. If you don't know how to get there, go to Google, type in flights, boom, you're there. Google Flights is simply a search engine for flights. It aggregates flights and prices across most airlines, and it recommends itineraries based on your search parameters. The basic way to use it is to plug in your departure and your arrival airports, your dates, and hit search. And you can also add a ton of different filters to enhance your search, such as airline alliance, price maximums, departure and times, et cetera. Select the itinerary you like, and then Google will give you options on where to book. So this is a search engine and not a booking engine. You're still going to end up booking directly with the airline, but Google is putting the power in your hands because you have way more information. And based on the filters you're using, you can do things like make your itinerary nonstop. So you're not going to get some three-leg trip that may look cheaper, but it's a lot more cumbersome and difficult. One of my favorite features is the date grid, which shows you optimal pricing based on shifts in departure or arrival dates. Once you've searched, just click date grid and Google highlights the best price days in green. What you'll notice is the more flexible you can be about when you travel, the more potential savings you can rack up. And I know that's not realistic for everyone. You may have set vacation dates, but if you have any margin leaving even one day later or one day earlier, it can add up to huge savings. Did you know you can also search up to five different departure and arrival airports in Google flights at once? So when I do a search in Google flights, I'll punch in a bunch of different airports within a two-hour or so drive from me just to see if any of those are cheaper than my closest airport. So let's say that you're not an expert at geography or flight routing. How do you know which additional airports to search? Let me show you another awesome feature of Google. Let's say you want to go to Europe, and maybe you've got a particular city in mind, but the prices you're seeing are outrageous. So instead of plugging in Chicago to Frankfurt, just type in Chicago to Europe. Now this could help you in picking a destination as a whole because it's quickly obvious where it's cheaper to go. We personally do this all the time, but it could also give you some ideas on how to get across the pond cheaply. If you're still set on that particular destination, there could be some very inexpensive options to get there. In a lot of international destinations, and continental Europe is a perfect example of this, flights to neighboring countries can be ridiculously inexpensive. I can't tell you how many $20 Ryanair flights that I've taken from one European country to another. Hey, real quick, if you're getting value out of this video, I would love it if you would hit that like button so that YouTube will know to suggest it to other travelers like you. Thank you. The combination of Explorer and date flexibility has saved me thousands of dollars. Thousands. But here's the thing. Both of the first two tips that I just shared assume that you have time and interest in searching for flights. Depending on when you're searching, you may not have visibility to great deals, right? Timing is still a factor, and you're probably not going to be searching every single day. But what if you knew you could have the best flight deals put in front of you when they're happening without having to do all this research? Picture this. You're sitting at your desk, checking off your to-do list for the day, and a notification pops up for a flight to your dream destination for 80% off. With flight deal alert services like FairDrop, you can set up your preferences one time, and then the deals just come to you as they're happening. Here's how FairDrop works. By the way, not sponsored. You set your preferred airports and destinations, and then FairDrop sifts through thousands of flights for you every single day, looking for deals and mistake fares. And there are actual humans vetting these deals. You get the deal sent directly to your phone or email, and if you like how it looks and the dates work for you, you just go book it. I know what you're thinking. Okay, Nick, what's the catch? Are these flights with legitimate airlines? Am I booking through some random third-party service? It's all totally legit. This isn't a booking service. It's a service that does the research for you. You're still going to end up booking directly with that airline, and these are major carriers, and they're all totally legit. This type of service is exactly how Allie and I were able to start traveling internationally on a consistent basis. Our first flight deal was a trip to northern Italy, less than $500 round trip. We got similar pricing to Morocco, southern Italy, and Bavaria. And every time, we got more than 50% off our flights. And we don't even live near a major hub. If you live near more of a major airport, the deals can be far more significant. Now, an annual membership to FairDrop is $99, which if you use it to take advantage of even one deal, it more than pays for itself. But at the time of filming this video, FairDrop is having a crazy Black Friday sale, 50% off. So for $49, you get all the domestic, international, and even business class deals. Plus, they're throwing in a bunch of extras, a free t-shirt, a Lonely Planet ebook to the destination of your choice, a $50 hotel credit, and entry into a giveaway to the Maldives. Again, not sponsored. I've actually used services like this, and if you sign up using our link, we do make a small commission at no extra cost to you, which just helps us keep making free videos like this. Links below. And one more note about flight deal services like these, because I get this question a lot. When a deal comes through, do I need to pack my bag tonight and be ready to hop on a plane tomorrow? No. The deals that come through are typically for a range of times, sometimes multiple months. So for example, I got this deal to Warsaw, Poland for November through March. You don't need to be ready to travel this week, but you probably will need to make a decision this week. When a great deal comes through, you need to be ready to pounce because it's not going to last long. Now you might be thinking, dude, I don't even know if I can take off work on those days. I'm going to need to get approval. My next tip is going to help you with that, and airlines hate it. The 24-hour rule. In the United States, there's a regulation that guarantees you can cancel a flight within 24 hours of booking. This means if you see a great deal come through, you can book it on the spot. And if you decide within 24 hours that for whatever reason it doesn't work, you can cancel for a full refund. I've used this to my advantage a couple of times. Once, I couldn't make the exact dates that I had found work. Okay, canceled, full refund. Another time, I found a better deal to the same place the next day. Booked that flight, canceled the first one, boom, full refund. This was like a literal cheat code, a do-over button for finding cheap flights. To be able to take advantage of the 24-hour rule, the flight must depart more than seven days from the date of booking, and you have to book directly with the airline. If you don't do those two things, you're not going to get a refund. My absolute favorite way to save money on flights saved us $25,000 this year alone. It's the trick I use to take our family from the U.S. to Austria in Austrian Airlines business class for only $5. It's strategically accumulating airline miles earned through travel rewards credit cards, and in this video, I give a deep dive into exactly how to do that. Thanks so much for watching. Happy travels.