Most budget airlines will now appear in the broad search engines we are recommending (but NOT Southwest). If you want to be 100% sure though, you can do an additional search for regional budget airlines (we've listed as many we know of further below).
Finally, no single search engine is consistently perfect (though we typically find the cheapest price on Skyscanner or Momondo). As such, you may need to try a combination of search engines to ensure you're not missing any results. There doesn't seem to be one that gets the cheapest flight 100% of the time.
While many theories exist around booking specifically on a Tuesday to save money, the reality is there is no consistent truth to exactly which days are cheapest to fly. Most of the time it is cheaper to leave on a weekday, though this isn't always the case. Your best strategy is to get a quick visual of prices for a whole month to see what days are cheapest for your specific route. Here's how:
Step 3. Select “one-way” (even if flying round trip – you're just determining the cheapest days to fly out first)
Step 4. On a computer: click “Depart” but instead of entering a date, select “Whole Month”, and then “Cheapest Month” so you can browse all dates to see which is cheapest. Hit “Search flights” to easily see which date is cheapest.
In the mobile app: Tap the departure date, then change the view to “Chart”. You can easily swipe left and right to find the cheapest date, and tap on one of the bars to see the price.
Repeat these steps for your return flight if applicable. You can still book a round trip in one booking, but doing these steps first will let you see which dates are generally cheaper to fly in/out on for your round trip.
Kiwi.com and Google Flights work similarly to Skyscanner, plus they have map views as well, so you can see where the airport is. For tracking when and where is cheapest to fly, Hopper also offer price analysis and track fluctuations (i.e. when is best to fly).
The cheapest flight you can book is free, and the easiest way to do that is with points. If you don't have any, don't fret – signing up for just one travel rewards credit card and hitting the minimum spend can land you a major points bonus, often enough for a free flight!
You can sign up for an airline rewards card that earns points with a particular airline, or a more general travel rewards card that lets you redeem points across a variety of airlines. As a beginner card, we recommend the Chase Sapphire Preferred Card. You can earn up to 60,000 in bonus points after spending $4,000 in the first 3 months after your account opening. That's worth $750 when redeemed through Chase Ultimate Rewards, and more than enough for an international flight. And since it includes trip cancelation insurance, car rental collision damage waiver, lost luggage insurance, and no foreign transaction fees, it's the perfect all-rounder travel credit card. You can compare this card with other top credit cards.
$50 annual Ultimate Rewards Hotel Credit, 5x points for purchases on Chase Ultimate Rewards, 3x points on dining, and 2x points on all other travel purchases.
Points are worth 25% more on airfare, hotels, car rentals, and cruises when booking through Chase Ultimate Rewards (e.g. 60,000 points worth $750 toward travel)
Do you have your own business? Then consider the Chase Ink Business Preferred Credit Card instead, where you can earn a whopping 100,000 bonus points after you spend $15,000 in the first 3 months from the account opening. That's worth $1250 through Chase Ultimate Rewards. You'll also earn 3 points per dollar on the first $150,000 spent in select business purchase categories per year, and 1 point per dollar on all other purchases. Learn how to apply.
We recommend using your card for everyday purchases, and to treat it like cash, using only the money you have in the bank, and paying your balance off each month. That way, you won't be charged interest, and you'll effectively get your points for free!
For more tips on how to master points travel, check out our guide How to Get Free Flights with Travel Credit Cards and Points for everything you need to get started.
Budget airlines offer significantly cheaper tickets than their full-service counterparts. It should be obvious, but this comes with compromises such as less leg room and no “free” food/drink on-board (which by the way, is normally covered in your higher-priced ticket with full-service airlines).
If you are considering flying budget, which in our opinion is a great way to save, I'd highly recommend reading our guide on 7 must-know facts about budget airlines.
Below is a comprehensive list of budget airlines around the globe. Red indicates true budget airlines while blue implies the cheapest companies available where budget airlines don't exist or aren't plentiful.
Ensure you've booked & paid for your luggage allowance. Adhere to restrictions on weight, height, and # of bags allowed. Some airlines (e.g. Ryanair) will charge hefty fee if you're over. Remember, paying only for the exact luggage space/weight you need is how budget airlines keep their prices lower than traditional airlines!
Cheap FlightsRead the fine print. The best example is that Ryanair WILL CHARGE AN AIRPORT CHECK-IN Fee €/£55 if you do not check-in online in advance and print your boarding pass, or use their mobile boarding pass. A warning of this fee is clearly stated in all capital letters in the first sentence of your e-confirmation. In a nutshell, always read and follow instructions!
Remember, if you want to book the cheapest flight possible (not service-of-the-year-award-winner), be adaptable, do your research, and know the budget airline's requirements & restrictions.
Southwest (consider their credit card with Companion Pass – every time you fly, your friend flies too – and 60,000 bonus points after hitting the minimum spend of $3,000 in the first 3 months)
If you're heading to any of these parts of the globe, start stalking these airlines. Use Twitter, Facebook or regularly check budget airline webpages to keep you in touch with specials before they sell out. Air Asia, Jetstar, Tiger Air and Ryanair are especially good at having regular deals.
Southwest Rapid RewardsMany of these budget airlines have their own airline rewards credit cards, and most of them offer a major signup points bonus. For example, the Southwest Rapid Rewards Plus card from Chase offers Companion Pass (every time you fly, your friend flies too) and 60,000 bonus points after hitting the minimum spend of $3,000 in the first 3 months. However, a general travel rewards credit card such as the Chase Sapphire Preferred Card is the best option for most people, as you have the flexibility to redeem your points towards a wide variety of airlines and hotels. You'll receive 60,000 bonus points worth $750 through the Chase Ultimate Rewards program after you spend $4,000 in the first 3 months of your account opening, and the card features no foreign transaction fees. Compare this card to other travel cards here.
On a side note, Wikipedia has a more detailed, comprehensive listing of low-cost airlines down to specific countries here, though what they consider “low-cost” is debatable. Still, if you're going to a specific country, it's worth checking so you know all your options.
Airlines sometimes make mistakes when posting their fares, leading to seriously discounted flights. This can happen for various reasons – currency conversion mishaps, technical glitches, or human error. If you're in the know-how on where to find airline error fares, you can save yourself hundreds of dollars on a ticket.
Airlines sometimes make mistakes when posting their fares, leading to seriously discounted flights. This can happen for various reasons – currency conversion mishaps, technical glitches, or human error. If you're in the know-how on where to find airline error fares, you can save yourself hundreds of dollars on a ticket.
One of the most popular sites for tracking sale and error fares is Going (previously Scott's Cheap Flights), or if you're in the UK, check out Jack's Flight Club. The website has a dedicated team that scours the internet for flight deals every day. Just make an account and enter your departure airport, and you'll start getting flight deals sent to your inbox. There's also a premium plan for only $49/year (but you can get 20% off with the coupon code TNOMADS20), which gives you access to even more flight deals with even deeper discounts. Considering members save an average of $550 per ticket, this is well worth the cost!
Other sites like Airfarewatchdog, Kiwi.com Deals, and Secret Flying are great resources to stalk for finding mistake and sale pricing, as they conglomerate slashed ticket rates all in one spot. You can also read our detailed how-to guide which spells out how to find mistake fares on your own. One great approach is to search for flights for an entire month using Skyscanner (Tip #3 in this article). This will allow you to easily spot a significantly reduced fare against what's displayed that month, and has twice helped us stumble on error fares ourselves.
If you're flying somewhere that involves a transfer, say from Canada to Australia which typically involves Canada to LA, then LA to Australia, consider that it may be cheaper to book these two legs separately on your own by adding another destination to your trip. It should go without saying that in doing this, you should not book tight layovers. I repeat: do not book layovers that are hours apart! This approach is for those who want to create an additional destination of a few days or more, before catching their next flight. The one exception is when booking with Kiwi.com, who offer their own guarantee on making connecting flights even when not with the same partner airlines.
First, do your research: are there budget airlines unique to the country you're flying out of and where you're headed to? Booking with a budget Australian airline (Jetstar) from Sydney to Honolulu, then an American one from Honolulu to Montreal saved us over $400 each when flying back from Australia to Canada earlier this year. This allowed us to create a thrifty five-day stopover in Hawaii on our way back, which was less exhausting and a lot cheaper! Kiwi.com and Skyscanner are both great search engine for revealing cheaper routes like this that involve multiple airlines.
You can even book your own multi-day layovers, essentially allowing you to see 2 destinations for the price of 1. Rather than spend a day sitting in the airport, you can spend multiple days exploring the city you are laying over in. By using Skyscanner's multi-city search feature, you can book a multi-day stopover for essentially the same price as if you had connected directly. To learn how to do this, read our guide on How to Get Free Extended Layovers & Hack One Trip Into Two.
Whether you know exactly where you're going or you just want to find to the cheapest possible country to fly into, Kiwi.com is a great tool to get the wanderlust going and save some big bucks. Hop on their site and enter your departure city, then select a date range to fly. Approximate costs then appear over hundreds of countries around the globe from your departure point, while the list of destinations is sorted by price, allowing you to see the most cost-effective place you can fly.
Where Kiwi.com really shines is the way in which it mixes and matches airlines in order to find the cheapest price. For example, maybe you want to go to Rome, Italy from Washington, USA. A typical flight search engine will only suggest routes coming from a single airline and its partners. An example search on Expedia shows the cheapest route as $631.20 USD via TAP Portugal.
Kiwi.com, on the other hand, will mix and match airlines (including budget airlines) in order to find you the very cheapest route. For long-haul flights especially, this can make a huge difference. The same search on Kiwi.com returns a route at $459.80 USD via JetBlue, Norwegian Air, and Vueling. That's a savings of $171.40 USD, and the travel time is even shorter!
Typically, booking a whole trip with different airlines would be risky. For example, let's say your first flight with JetBlue was delayed, and you missed your connecting flight with Norwegian Air. Because the airlines have no association with each other, Norwegian Air has no obligation to reschedule your flight for free, so you would just lose your money. Kiwi.com instead offers their own guarantee, which covers schedule changes, flight delays, and cancellations. As long as you contact Kiwi.com as soon as you're aware of the delay, they will provide you with an alternate connecting flight, or a full refund, at your discretion. We haven't used this guarantee ourselves, but it certainly sounds like an appealing way to take the risk out of a thrifty flight hack!
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