How to find cheap flights in 2022: tricks and recommendations

Finding cheap flights is not a myth or a utopia. We will not tell you that it is easy to find them and even on many occasions, the luck factor also has a lot to do with that search, but we assure you that by following some recommendations and tricks, getting cheap flights is possible!

After many years of traveling and with some cheap flights behind us, we also want to be honest and make it clear before starting that this is not an exact science and that these tips and recommendations are not always applicable or work 100%, so it is also It is important to review these tips for cheap travel. Despite that, of course, don’t stop trying!

1. Trust flight search engines to get cheap flights

We know that flight search engines sometimes cause confusion, but we assure you that when you want to find cheap flights , they can be your best friend. There are multiple options, although we always focus on 4 search engines that, up to now, have seemed the most complete and appropriate.

• skyscanner
• Kiwi
• Google Flight
• kayaking

The first of them is probably the best known and the most common among travelers. One of the most relevant features of Skyscanner is that it has an option that filters the results by prices, being able to find the cheapest flights with a single click, something perfect if you have flexible dates on your trip, since it will allow you to fly cheaper . You also have the option of choosing an origin without a destination and filtering the results of the flights ordered by price. Although it may not seem useful at first glance, in case you don’t want to travel to a fixed destination, this is perfect for finding cheap flights and choosing the destination based on them.

Kiwi is the next cheap flight search engine that we use and the truth is that it is the perfect complement to the first one since on many occasions it offers you different results and in all of them you can see very important details such as what extras are included, the type of plane or how are the seats. In addition, another of the most relevant features is that in the filters you can indicate whether you want to check bags or not so that it can directly search for cheaper flights taking that criterion into account. And last but not least, this platform offers you the possibility of contracting the Kiwi Guarantee, which covers various situations, including the loss of connections between flights, if they are not from the same company.

The third musketeer of flight search engines is Google Flight. Although it may seem that with the first two you would already have covered the entire panorama of cheap flight results, nothing could be further from the truth. From experience we can tell you that if you want to do some unusual route or that few companies operate, it is best to search on Google Flights. Here we have found alternatives that have saved us a lot of time and we have also found several cheap flights that have greatly adjusted the travel budget.

In addition to these three, which are the ones that we use most regularly, it is worth taking a look at Kayak, to finish seeing available alternatives and thus having all the options to get cheaper flights .

2. Being flexible in your dates increases the chances of finding cheap flights

We will never tire of saying it: not having fixed dates on a trip always lowers flight prices. We know that having this flexibility is not easy, but whenever you can, try to forget about flying in high season or going to certain destinations during their most touristic times. For example, flying to Iceland in August is more expensive than doing it in June or going to New York during the December long weekend is much more expensive than going after the long weekend. Even on many occasions it is not even necessary to fly at another time, simply by advancing or delaying your flight one day, the price changes completely. Something important is to know that you can also easily see these changes in the search engines that we talked about earlier, since both Skyscanner and Kiwi show you a calendar in which each day has a color,

 3. Flexibility to fly to any destination

Before we talked about the importance of flexible dates to save on flights, but if you add to that the flexibility to fly anywhere, the chances of finding cheap flights multiply. And in this case, to find out what options we have, we once again make use of the useful flight search engines. You just have to leave the destination selection empty and you will see the results ordered by prices, having the cheapest flights directly at your fingertips regardless of the destination. Although this may not seem interesting at first glance, just think about something: imagine that you don’t know Rome or Paris and you love both cities. You do the search and the price of the flight to Rome is 150 euros and to Paris 35 euros. You’re going to Paris, right?

 4. Including nearby airports in searches equals saving on flights

Another way to get cheap flightsis to include airports close to the destination in the searches. Many times we focus on the main airports of the cities and sometimes, flying to a nearby airport allows you to save a lot of money. An example of this would be low cost companies like Ryanair that often operate their flights in secondary airports that are only 50-60 kilometers from the city. And for this, search engines are also very useful since alternatives such as Kiwi allow you to include nearby airports and even advises you to do so. In the photo, for example, you can see that we are searching for a Barcelona-New York flight and it advises us to also add the airports of Girona and Palma to see more options. Palma in this case may be a bit far away but Girona, which is only 100 kilometers away,

Another example are cities like London, which has no more and no less than 6 airports, Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted, Luton, London City Airport and Southend, and depending on dates or times, it can be much cheaper to fly to one than another.

Including nearby airports allows us to fly cheaper

Keep in mind that this does not only happen at the airports of origin. It also happens at destination airports and on many occasions landing at an airport that is not the main one in the city will also allow you to save on flights.

Recommended cards for travel

Remember that in order not to pay commissions and always have the current change, we recommend using the Revolut card and the N26 card. They are the ones we use, they are free and they will mean a great saving. You can find more information in this article about the best cards to travel without commissions.

5. Sign up for low cost airlines

If you want to find cheap flights, low cost airlines are your best ally. These usually have better offers and more affordable prices than the big airlines, although you should also bear in mind that they do not usually include extras such as baggage check, meals or choice of seats. Normally we would recommend this option for relatively short flights, 2-4 hours, although there are some routes like the one from Barcelona to New York that Norwegian does that we have come to see for just over 100 euros round trip. It does not include checked luggage or meals but with that price, how can you hesitate to buy it?

Although, as we said, there are always some examples of very cheap long-haul flights, low cost companies are usually very useful for making flights of a few hours at much lower prices than those of traditional companies.

We leave you a list of the best known low cost of each continent, although there are many more, so you can consult them. In addition to reviewing their websites, they are also included in most search engines, so it will not take long for you to locate them in your searches.

• Europe : Ryanair, Vueling, Norwegian, EasyJet, Eurowings, Jet2.com, Wow Air, Wizz Air.
• Asia : AirAsia, Jetstar Airways, Bangkok Airways, Nokair, Garuda, Silkair, Lion Air, Cebu Pacific, SpiceJet.
• North America : JetBlue Airways, Southwest Airlines, US Airways, Virgin America, Kiwi International Air Lines, Pacific Southwest Airlines, United Airlines, Air Transat, Aeromexico Connect, Interjet, Viva Aerobus, Volaris.
• Latin America : Veca Airlines, Webjet, EasyFly, Viva Colombia, Wingo, Peruvian Airlines, Star Peru, Viva Air, JetSmart.
• Oceania : JetStar, TigerAir, Pacific Blue, Freedom Air, Virgin Blue.
• Africa : Jet4you, Atlas Blue, Mango, IRS Airlines.

 6. Fly at unconventional hours

This is not always 100% accurate, but normally, flights outside of normal hours are usually much cheaper than the rest. For example, not long ago we were looking at flights to the Canary Islands and those that took off from Barcelona at 7 in the morning were 30% cheaper than those that left at 9 in the morning. This also happens with flights on unusual days , especially on specific dates such as bridges or holidays. You just have to look for flights a day before or a day after the bridge and see how prices drop considerably. This will force you to pay one more night in the hotel, but think that in the end you will have the reward of being at the destination early in the morning or on less crowded days.

Another option to get cheap flights , if you want to get away, is to escape the weekends or fly, for example, on a Friday morning and return early on a Sunday. On many occasions, just by making a small change of a few hours, the savings on flights are very considerable.

 7. Sign up for multi-destinations

Have you ever considered landing in one city and taking off in another? Although for some trips this is more complicated, in others, in addition to saving time, it is another way to get cheap flights. For example in Japan. Normally we would have the idea to fly to Tokyo or Osaka and directly buy a round trip ticket. If you are going to do a typical route, like this one that you can see in the Japan guide, it is much better to enter through Osaka and exit through Tokyo or vice versa. It is for this reason that before buying the flights, it is important to review the route you want to take and based on this, see what options you have to find cheaper flights .

Once you have it clear, you can use search engines like Skyscanner that allow you to include several cities and thus compare prices.

 8. Buy roundtrip flights in different companies

This is something that we do not usually do on a regular basis but on occasions, when buying flights, we have seen that buying the outward journey with one company and the return with another, the flight became much cheaper. What’s more, even on many occasions it can even fit you better by schedule, so it is another perfect option to find cheap flights and thus also save on flights. The last one we did like this was on the trip to Colombia, on a journey from Bogota to San Andres, and we ended up buying the one way with LATAM and the return with Viva Air, since in addition to being cheaper, the schedule fits us much better.

 9. Error fares, another way to save on flights

Exist. Believe it or not, we assure you that they exist and on many occasions they are real bargains. What’s more, for several years we had a website in which we published all the error fares and flight bargains that we found and we assure you that many travelers flew at ridiculous prices thanks to them. The only drawback of these error rates is that sometimes the airlines detect it and later cancel the flight. But don’t worry, if this happens, they will send you an email explaining that the flight will be canceled and that they will refund the amount you have paid. That is why we always recommend that if you buy a flight with an error fare, and everything you book later, you make sure that it has free cancellation.

However, this does not happen with offers or bargains and it is not the first time that an airline has launched a flight offer for 4.99 euros or flights to New York, like the one we mentioned above, for less than 200 euros. To be aware of these offers or error rates, it is important to be subscribed to all flight search engines, activate the alert on certain routes so that the search engine notifies you by email when prices drop and also check pages such as Pirate Travelers that publish this type of information.

 10. More tricks to get cheap flights

In addition to all the tricks to find cheap flights that we have talked about, we want to leave you with a selection of tips and recommendations that we believe can also be very useful in your search.

• Use apps like Hooper to get an idea of ​​the cheapest days to buy a flight. Although this is not 100% reliable, it will allow you to get an idea since the application itself, with its statistics and data, tells you if the flight has a tendency to drop in price or not.
• Another way to get cheap flights is to change the search country in flight search engines. This will also change the currency and curiously, on some flights, this also lowers the price. We have only been able to do it in Chile, on an internal flight, in which by putting in the search engine that we were in Chile and not in Spain, we ended up saving almost 50%. In these cases it is also important to pay with the Vivid card and the N26 card, for example, with which you will have the change of the day and you will not have to pay any type of extra commission. You can read more information in the post the best cards to travel without commissions.
• Joining airline programs can also be a good way to save on flights, although the truth is that the times we have done it we have ended up getting discouraged since you need to make many flights with the same company to be able to get a free flight.
• Buy and fly on Tuesdays. We have read a lot on the subject of buying flights one day or another of the week. The truth is that we have not found any difference between buying one day or another or at least we have not seen any rule that suggests that there is a relevant trend. Despite that, it does not hurt to check it just in case. Another legend says that flying on Tuesdays is cheaper than any other day of the week. We will not be the ones to say that it is not cheaper than doing it during the weekend, but to see that, you don’t have to be very smart, right?
• Delete cookies. This urban legend is also widespread. We have done it once in some other search engine and although it has not dropped in price, it is true that the same flight, after consulting several times (many) has ended up going up in price in a couple of days.
• Subscribe to the pages of the airlines and the main flight search engines. In addition to having the information from the first moment to get cheap flights, you will be able to discover new destinations that may not have even crossed your mind.
• Intermediaries? Well, maybe you can find cheap flights but always go to the end of the purchase to see what the total amount is. Keep in mind that nobody gives anything away and in many cases these companies increase prices at the end by adding extras for the management that end up making the flight much more expensive than buying it at the airline.
• And last but not least, we believe that it is important not to be obsessed with prices and buy the flight when you see that it adjusts to what you want to pay or you think it is worth. Miracles do not exist on airlines and waiting for the perfect moment at the end can end up being a disaster and you will be left without a trip or end up paying twice what you thought.