For the seasoned traveler, booking cheap flights online is an art form. With a range of search engines and travel platforms at your fingertips, we’ve narrowed down 5 of our favorites (in no specific order… since they each have different strengths.) Next time you’re looking for cheap flight tickets, give them a try…
1. Skyscanner
Best features:
- Price Alerts… help you track prices on a particular flight if you’re not ready to buy. If prices drop, you’ll get an email alert straight away.
- ‘Everywhere’… feature is perfect if you’re flexible about where you fly. Just enter “Everywhere” into the destination box and you’ll find the best cheap flights available on the dates you’ve chosen.
2. Google Flights
Best features:
- Explore Map… lets you select dates and a departure city and scroll across the Map to find a cheap fare. It gives you amazing travel options to cities around the globe (and it’s really fun seeing all the prices pop up as you scroll the map.)
- Flexible dates search… gives you an entire monthly calendar view with the cheapest prices of each day highlighted in green… and more expensive fares in red.
3. Skiplagged
Best feature:
- “Hidden-city flight“… is what Skiplagged is famous for. A ‘hidden-city flight’ is where you get off at the layover rather than the final destination. Why do this? Because in the weird world of air travel… it’s a way for savvy fliers to find cheaper flights with this loophole. There is one major drawback — checking in luggage is obviously a no no since it will end up at your final destination.
4. Momondo
Best features:
- Massive search engine… pulls in data from over 1,000 airlines, travel agencies, other search engines and more. Unlike some other booking sites it also includes budget airlines in your results… and many sites claim that it regularly outshines the competition when it comes to finding the best available price.
- Flight Insight… analyzes the factors that impact airfares on individual routes. This includes details on the cheapest week in the year to travel to your destination, cheapest day of the week for your departure and many other useful insights that will help you score the best deal.
5. Kayak
Best features:
- Price Forecast… is based on historical flight information and will tell you whether or not the flight price will go up or down in the next 7 days. You have the option to Buy or Watch with a handy price alert as well.
- Price alerts… can be set even if you don’t know your travel dates or destinations. You can create alerts for general time periods like ‘Upcoming Weekends’ or ‘June 2019’, along with options like ‘Top 25 Cities’.
SEE ALSO… 19 of the Best Places to Travel in 2019
Feature image courtesy of Emirates