How to find cheap flights?

Cheap air travel has become increasingly easy to find in the past few decades. These days, with little to no hassle, you can fly virtually anywhere in the world. You no longer have to deal with ridiculous fees, wait times, or anything else – you can easily be a globetrotter should it strike your fancy, even without being an executive. There are almost 200 countries available – making the world truly your oyster. Once you get there, you should also be able to find reasons to downright stylish accommodations to boot. These are genuinely amazing times that we’re living in.

That said, inexpensive travel has come with issues for some. There are now more airlines than ever, meaning that it can be hard to navigate. They all promise excellent service and the lowest possible price for anyone who books through them – regardless of the distance in which you decide to travel. It has become increasingly necessary for people to know where to locate the best rates available. It should be in any traveler’s repertoire to have tools to make them spot bad deals and capitalize on those that will save some money.

Our Process for Cheap Air Travel

It’s been our goal to provide would-be travels with sites that are known to do this. We’ve hammered down the top 15 different websites that we believe are completely capable of whatever you’ll need. As travelers ourselves, we’ve broken down what we consider to be essential traits, sifting through tens of websites to compel users to get high rates. We don’t believe in having users spend many hours with a fine-toothed comb, scouring over listings and prices to find something amenable to their budget, wallet, and lifestyle.

So we decided to go ahead and do all of this for you, culminating in the best selection of sites that will give you what you want – when you want it. This includes eliminating sketchy websites and those that will simply waste your time.

We went through everything – including its core features, pros, cons, and everything else – presenting you only the facts in a way that’s easy to digest. While painstaking work, we believe that there are too many websites out there that don’t explain what to look for, much less presented in a way that you can pursue without having to dig too much.

This is what we started with when we were grading the websites that we chose to present to our users. We wanted the user interface to be easy to use. While we know that style points are everything on the internet these days, we chose a balance between that and simple usability – with an emphasis more on the latter than the former. Looking for flights can be a stressful experience, and if the site loads strangely, you’re just adding undue stress where there needn’t be any. You won’t find any pop-up ads, slowness, or ridiculous homepages on the websites that we bring to you.

We find it unnecessary, annoying, and it doesn’t get to the point enough for the customer. Many times, we have seen that a lot of these websites does not show the deals that we are looking for. At most, they don’t offer anything that better sites do.

They also tend to distract the user, which is baffling if they’re looking to do good business or offer a service worth using. We don’t want to put people off from our partners, so this was a critical step for us to take.

Are our users in control?

We also wanted to put an eye on the control for our users. So we added a lot of filters for you to use when you’re looking for flights – displayed on the search results page. We did this because we know that there are a plethora of options for a particular flight. Most of these are rooted in common sense, including things like time of departure, the number of stops between Point A and B, time of arrival, and the number of days between flights. We found that this is probably the most crucial feature of sites like this, so we gave our users what they needed for a sensible decision.

We did this because it offers full customization of your flight, other than many websites that allow you to pick dates, passengers, and the two locations that you’ll probably be flying to and from where. The filters allow you to find the best possible deal for you, absolutely ladened with preferences that are uniquely chosen by you. We’ve found that this tool is handy when you don’t have a lot of time to book a flight. There may not be a lot of time to scroll endlessly through pages.

It can be a very long process. We did agree that it was one thing – useless. With that in mind, we built a site that gives you the power to tweak and needle down to only what you need. It saves time, energy, and keeps you excited about the flight that you’re going to be taking.

Lastly, we found it to be useful to filter results by the airline itself, something that you don’t generally find. We thought this would be important for those who usually fly with one airline due to preference, whether it’s because you like their amenities or you happen to be a member of one of their loyalty programs. We know how important frequent flyer miles are, and we’d be remiss not to allow you to sort in a way for you to keep them stacking up.

Do flight prices go down on Tuesday? Be Alerted!

We’ve also found that some of the best websites used price alert systems. Unfortunately, some do not. In any event, you probably understand that airline prices can change pretty quickly, sometimes a few times per day. While we’re not always sure why, we understand that there are some common factors, such as – weather, national events, flight cancelations, different holidays, and even the day that you book. Also, the day you book has some bearing on the price of the flight – Sunday evenings being the absolute worst time to book, in that it costs more money than any other time during the week.

Since you aren’t probably going to be super mindful of all of these things, we decided that a price alert system to be a good help. It works pretty simply, too. All you have to do is to enter your destination(s), dates, email address, additional pertinent flight destination, and you’ll receive an email when the flight of choice changes in price.

This can be a useful tool for the budget-minded. Who knows, there is the potential for the flyer to save hundreds of dollars for their trip. Regardless of your reasons behind the flight, there isn’t a person who likes paying more when they don’t have to. Fortunately, this tool is unlocked with just an email address.

It should be said that a price alert system may not be advantageous for those looking for a flight in just a few days in the future, it serves completely instrumental for those who are quite some time out. If even a few month’s advantage, it almost becomes a situation where you can’t afford not to sign up, as the savings can be significant. It’s also always a free tool, so you’re not wasting anything except a couple of keystrokes to get a good bargain.

When we were reviewing websites to include on our site, we considered it almost an oversight not to represent those who were genuinely committed to saving their customers money.

Exclusive Rates on Flights

Like their travel site counterparts, we’ve found that many airline booking sites present users with different offers to allow their customers to find exclusive rates on flights. These website deals can be significant for the traveler, and at current, there are a few different websites that do this. The savings here can be significant, with many sites reporting up to about 40% off of airline tickets to a chosen destination and travel date.

It should be said that it isn’t without some caveats. To redeem a deal such as this, you may have to give up some luxuries. However, you may not. It works like this – you get to pick the dates, locations, and passengers. What you don’t have control over is what airline you’re going to be flying with. You actually won’t know until after you have made the booking. This may be fine for a large number of flyers, but those who have strict preferences or are a part of a loyalty/rewards program won’t be able to reap the benefits. There are other examples, too.

For example, Lufthansa has a different spin on this. Their deal allows you to make a bid on an upgrade to Premium Economy, First or Business Class, on a predetermined price. Generally, these prices are quite fair.

The company will then email you a few hours later to let the flyer know whether or not they have had their bid accepted. Should you get this email, you can have the peace of mind knowing that you have some great seats without having to pay out of the nose. Of course, these are just a couple of deals that are provided – of which there are several. We believed that these deals were too crucial to saving money – as well as just being plain cool – so we decided to have them as a place of our ranking criteria.

We couldn’t afford to include them.

Flight Transparency for All

We also understand that there are some airlines out there who don’t plan by the standard rules set by the industry as a whole. Some are just more transparent than others. We took that into account, too. Companies such as Ryanair or CheapOAir – while good for specific purposes – kind of hold back how they’re pricing things. At first, it seems as if these are great companies to work with because their rates are so low. But what they generally don’t show you is that they don’t show you the actual price.

They’re known for processing fees, “hand luggage” fees, and others that others don’t usually charge for. Once applied to the total price of the flight, you’ll quickly find that these airlines are about the same price as the major airlines. What’s more is that they usually lack such essential amenities, which will more than often than not result in a poor flight experience. This is exacerbated by you paying nearly the full price with the necessities during a flight of your choosing.

This can be heartbreaking as well as frustrating for any would-be flyer. No one likes surprise fees when they’re on the way to their destination. It’s even worse when you arrive at the airport – in airport mode – learning that the standard amenities do not apply to your reservation. To combat this, our website adamantly decided to only work with those who were fully transparent with their customers.

We didn’t like the fact that these airlines would try to deceive their customers at any point. We don’t believe in hidden fees – only those that were shown at the beginning. While we respect their ability to provide a service to those who need it, we couldn’t in good faith include any website that didn’t operate in complete good faith. The sites that we work with will generally give the would-be flyer a few options to choose from, tailoring their flight experience and deal without any such service fees. In short, you know exactly what you’re going to pay when you select the deal.

You usually won’t have to worry about poor flight experiences that many flyers have cited in dealing with those companies.

In summation, the list we provide is the cream of the crop. Our partners list the best possible flights to find cheap flights, various features that you may enjoy, as well as pertinent and thorough flight info – just as the most knowledgeable flyer, would want. With our criteria and website functionality mentioned above, you’ll be informed as to what they’ll need to know from getting from Point A to Point B. This is true if you’re looking to plan a trip for the next day or even the following year.

We do this because we know how difficult it is to plan a flight – regardless of the circumstances. Chances are, you’re going to be spending hundreds of dollars and just as much – if not more in actual travel distance.

So, we’re here to help take a lot of pressure off of you, allowing you to be supremely informed and entirely ready for wherever life takes you.