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How To Get Cheap Flights

This page is all about how to get cheap flights.

The methods described here can be very effective and will quite often give you some very good deals.

However, they are not the best tricks around.

If you really want to get some great ways to scam, cheat and trick the online booking systems (all legally of course) be sure to check out our home page for all the best stuff.

How To Get Cheap Flights Myths

I'm going to start by dispelling a couple of common misconceptions a lot of people have about how to get cheap flights.

One of the most common theories is that standby flights and red eye flights offer the cheapest prices. MYTH. This is totally not true nowadays.

It may have been true 10 years ago, but things have changed a lot and now that air travel is booming, there actually aren't that many standby flights available anyway.

Also, you can actually get a cheaper price simply by booking early, not to mention any of the other numerous tricks on our home page.

The second common theory is that airfares will be cheap on different days and times. This is in fact TRUE, it's not a myth.

The cheapest days to fly will always be the least busy times (i.e. during the week) and the best time to book flights will always be as early as possible. These are facts you can rely on.
 

How To Get Cheap Flights Online

Here's some basic information about how to get cheap flights online.

If you search around you'll be using one of 3 types of airfare search engines.

The first one is the airline's own website (i.e. www.southwest.com). These can often be the best because they don't charge any extra fees or commissions because you're buying straight from the source. Additionally, the home sites quite often offer deals and specials which are not advertised on partner sites or search engines. Also, don't forget that Southwest and US Airways don't offer flights on other sites, so you'll need to go to these sites manually to check the fares.

The next type of search sites are aggregator sites such as Kayak, Mobissimo and Momondo. These sites don't charge fees or commissions on flights so are a good way to check multiple airlines in one place. Some of them don't let you book, so once you see a fare you like simply go to the airline site and book it direct.

The least effective mode of booking air travel is through a conventional booking site such as Orbitz, Travelocity or Expedia. These sites do the same thing as the aggregators except they charge you a booking fee.

Remember that these tips are just the tip of the iceberg. If you really want to get insanely cheap flights be sure to check out our home page for all of the best tricks.
 

How To Get Cheap Flights Last Minute

If you really need to find out how to get cheap flights at the last minute your best bet is to check out cheapoair or lastminutetravel.com.

As I mentioned earlier, standby flights aren't generally that good and most of the time you can't get one anyway so you might be left stranded. The best advice I can give you is to not get caught in this situation. Use the tips here. and on our home page, to book cheap flights early.

Here's a few more useful tips. Firstly, sign up for the Top 20 Travel deals newsletter from TravelZoo. They have some amazing deals over there. Another good site to check for good deals is Airfare Watchdog.

If you're on the lookout for something in particular I'd recommend downloading the ding software from Southwest Airlines. It lets you know as soon as the good deals come around and is free to download and install.