The HomeSchoula recommends the following article when preparing to teach Social Studies with our Let’s Plan a Trip & Choose Your Adventure series.
We live in a time when it’s pretty simple to make travel plans and save money. With a couple of tools and a few tricks, you will be on your way.
There are plenty of travel hacks online that claim to score you a cheaper plane ticket. How many of the most popular travel booking tips and hacks will save you money on your next flight? Let’s run through which travel booking tips and hacks are worth doing.
1. Where Do I Start Looking for Plane Tickets?
Google Flights is one of the best flight booking websites because it compares two months at a time. Most other travel sites only show a few days at a time or don’t give the exact price.
Google Flights is perfect for fast overview research. It doesn’t always give you the cheapest flights, but it’ll show you what day is the cheapest to travel.
2. How Do I Use Google Flights to Save Money?
There are a few different ways to use Google Flights in your planning.
Using Google Flights to Find a Destination
The first way to search is if you know when you can travel but haven’t decided on where to go. You can find all your cheap options in a few minutes.
Open Google Flights and input your home airport but leave the “where to” box empty. Now choose the days you want to fly and click “search”.
This will bring up all the destinations for those dates that leave from your home airport. You can see which ones are the cheapest by zooming out on the world map.
Zoom in to view smaller airports and more options. Use filters to find exactly what you’re looking for even faster. Options include the number of stops, certain airlines, flight times, and durations. You also have the option to set your price so only flights within your budget show up.
You can also see results for other nearby airports at the same time. Once you decide on a destination, click to view flights. Here you can set up an alert to track if the price is going to go up or down via email.
Learn the Best Times to Travel With Google Flights
The next way to use Google Flights is to find the best time to travel to where you want to go.
Load the Google Flights the same as before, but input both “where from” and “where to” locations. Instead of adding dates, click on the date box so that the calendar loads.
Now you can see two months at the same time with the price for each day. Look for which days are the cheapest to fly on. Click on the date you want to depart and the calendar will update with your return date options. When you click on the return date, the cheapest flight will appear at the top of the list.
How To Find The Cheapest Flights On Google
The last strategy is for when you want to find the cheapest most awesome vacation.
Start back on the main page of Google Flights. Instead of using the search tool, scroll down and click on the map. Add what airport you want to leave from.
The map will show you all the cheapest flights for one-week chunks in the next six months. Play around with the filters a little bit. You can select a two-week trip or a weekend trip or search within a specific month.
You don’t have to be specific with the “where to” either. You can input entire regions or continents to see the options available within that area.
3. Will I Find the Best Ticket Price on Google Flights?
Google Flights is a great starting point but won’t always find the cheapest tickets. Use Google to research when and where to go but use some other tricks to save more money.
Momondo is the next travel search engine you should check. It can do everything that Google Flights does but takes a lot longer to load.
So once you have your dates and locations, use those specific details in your Momondo search. You can usually find a little bit of savings by switching over to Momondo. Savings are even better on upgraded tickets like business or first class.
When you select a flight, it will load on whatever site is offering that deal. This may be on the airline’s direct site or through another third-party travel site.
If the cheapest price is with a third party, check with the airline to see if they are matching the same price. A few more travel tips will help you feel confident in the price you find.
4. Can I Save Money By Booking in Incognito Mode?
One of the most common hacks to finding cheap flights online is to search and book flights in an incognito browser. The logic claims that airlines watch when we look at the same flights over and over again and raise prices. Can browsing in incognito mode actually save you money on your flight?
Nope!
Beyond personal experience, there are many studies disproving the theory. If you’ve found a cheaper flight while incognito, you caught a standard price change. They are frequent and routine.
5. Are Certain Travel Days Cheaper?
Another popular hack to get a cheap plane ticket is to on certain days and times. Paying attention to when a flight is departing can save you significant money.
The principle of supply and demand drives down prices on unpopular travel times and days.
Most people aren’t looking for early-morning or late-night flights. This means there is less demand for these flights and ticket prices will drop.
Commuters and vacationers most often travel on Friday, Saturday, and Monday. Avoiding these days and flying mid-week means you are snagging a ticket that is less in demand.
6. Do I Save Money With a Budget Airline?
It’s true that base tickets are cheaper on airlines like Ryanair, Norwegian, or Spirit. In fact, these budget airlines sell tickets for as low as five dollars.
But there is a big caveat to booking cheap flight tickets with one of these low-cost carriers. While your ticket price is cheaper, the final cost of your flight can be way more than travel on a regular carrier.
Unlike big carriers like Delta or United Airlines, budget airlines charge extra for everything. Bringing a single bag can cost over $50. Forget to check in online before your flight? That’s another charge. All this nickel and diming can add up to sky-high prices.
Read the fine print and know exactly what’s included in your ticket cost. Unless it’s a short flight with no luggage, you might not save much money by going with a budget airline.
7. Should I Buy One-Way or Roundtrip Tickets?
People claim round-trip tickets are always cheaper than booking two one-way flights. Do airlines discount round-trip tickets to keep people flying with them each way?
Not always.
You can score some cheap round-trip flights. But many short domestic flights cost the same either way you book them.
Buying two one-way tickets can even be cheaper by booking with different airlines. You save by choosing your airline based on the cheapest flight to each destination.
Do the research and the math to see which type of ticket is the best deal for your trip.
8. Can I Get My Money Back on Non-refundable Tickets?
In fact, you can!
If your flight lands within the United States at any point, you have a 24-hour cancellation period. This applies to non-refundable tickets as long as you booked with the airline.
Third-party booking sites like Expedia do not have to honor this rule. You aren’t completely out of luck though. This is where the $50 or so for a travel insurance policy can pay off.
9. Will a VPN Save Me Money On My Flight?
A VPN (virtual private network) secures your connection to the internet by hiding your location. When searching and booking flights, a VPN can make it seem like you are somewhere else in the world.
In theory, flight prices vary depending on which country you’re searching from. With a VPN you can compare rates by changing your virtual location.
There are a couple of ways that travelers find cheaper flights with a VPN. Some change their virtual location to a lower-income country to find lower prices.
They can also score a cheaper deal by booking a domestic flight from within a country or region. The same domestic flight in Europe costs less when booked in Europe than from another country. With a VPN, you can make the site think you are local to wherever you are wanting to travel.
This trick does not always impact flight prices and options. Using a VPN is an inexpensive way to have extra security while browsing online anyway.
By leveraging these travel hacks and tips together you will be able to find the best deal on your trip. Happy traveling!
