Live Your Life ! Researching and booking travel can be an overwhelming experience, even for the most seasoned traveller. With so many different travel websites, apps, tools, and advice floating around the internet, sometimes it’s tempting to throw in the towel and just book whatever flights you see first. the most reliable and creative travel hacks to help you find the cheapest flights available. With tips ranging from when to book flights to how to book them, get upgrades, and more – we’ve got you covered!
Honey Automatic Coupons, Promo Codes, and Deals
Honey is a free browser extension that automatically finds and applies coupon codes at checkout for over 30,000 shopping sites. We also instantly find better prices on Amazon and offer Honey Gold at many stores for our American, Canadian, and UK I will link you to my post about it
Fly Business Class For Less (Wait…what?!)
Sick of squashing into that tiny space in economy and the guy next to you falling asleep on your shoulder? The easy solution is to fly Business class! But how? I know it’s not cheap, and I could never afford to fork out the full price of a business ticket. Try this hack that has allowed me to travel Business Class on a few airlines while barely paying half the advertised price. Not by some magical sweet-talking of the check-in staff, but simply by bidding for upgrades through the airline’s website! Etihad, Singapore Air, Cathay, Virgin Australia and many more airlines all let you bid for a business class upgrade. There will be a “minimum bid” you can place which varies depending on airline and route.
I usually take a look a week before my flight on the seat selection screen to see how busy the flight seems. If it looks like there’s a lot of space I just place a minimum bid and I’ve been successful that way. If it looks like there are a few passengers I just bid $10 to $20 over the minimum and I’ve won countless upgrades that way. The majority of people just bid the minimum without even realizing a tiny bit more could swing it for them. Give it a try next time you book an economy flight and who knows you may get to stretch out at the pointy end of the plane!
Always Clear Your Cookies
Often when searching for cheap flights, whether it’s on an airline’s website or with a flight search engine like Skyscanner, we’re not ready to purchase tickets the second we find a cheap flight. The problem is, the next time you look up that same flight, even if it’s only a few hours later, you may find that the price has gone up.
That’s because flight booking sites track your cookies aka browsing history. If sites know that you’re highly interested in a certain route, they may bump the prices up for you. Cookies will also track if you’ve been looking up other information about destinations, for example, “top activities in Vancouver.” This means that even if it’s your first time looking up a flight, you may not be seeing the most accurately low prices. To avoid this, clear your cookies before searching for a cheap flight. By clearing your cookies, you will get unfiltered results of the lowest possible rates to your destination. Clearing your cookies is simple and easy. On a Mac, go to your Privacy settings on Safari or your browser of choice, click “manage website cookie data,” then click remove all. On a PC, head to the Safety setting on Internet Explorer, then click “delete browsing history” and delete all cookies.
Use VPNs To Change Your Location
We’ve used this cheap flight hack many times over the past few years and we have always saved money with it. You will always get the cheapest flight if you are booking from the place you wish to fly from. In the internet world, that means that your computer, laptop or phone needs to be located in the country where you’re booking the flight
Of course, that’s not always possible. Physically at least. But it is virtually – if you have a VPN. A VPN – virtual private network – lets you spoof your location to where you want it to be. The logic here is that the website will think that you’re actually in the USA, making your flight leaving from the USA cheaper. The best VPNs have multiple servers in multiple countries, so you’ll have lots of options. I’ve saved hundreds of dollars, euros, pesos and GB pounds on flights this way. This year we’ve saved on flights in Colombia, but some time back we saved 700 euros on last-minute emergency flights in Europe too! As well as the money you’ll save, you really should use your VPN when you’re booking anything to make sure that your credit card and login information isn’t being snooped on by anyone on the public WiFi networks!
Try Booking Each Ticket Separately
When you are searching for a cheap flight online and know that you are travelling with more than one person. One hack that you can do is to use a website such as Skyscanner to save money on your tickets. The hack is to purchase each ticket individually. Here is how I usually do it when booking flights to Jamaica from the United Kingdom.
Whenever I select 2 people and look through the search results, the prices are usually slightly more expensive. Instead, what I do is a search for 1 adult in two different browser tabs. Then, if I find that the ticket price is cheaper, I go ahead and purchase each ticket individually.
If not being able to sit together during the flight is a deal-breaker, there are 2 things you can do to make sure that you and your companion are both seated together. Depending on the airline, once you have received the e-ticket, you can go to the check-in page and select the desired seat numbers that you want. If you have purchased the tickets via a travel agent, you can contact them and ask to make sure that both passengers are seated together on the plane.
Opt For Stopovers Rather Than Direct Flights
We try to save money on long haul flights by choosing stopovers rather than direct flights. A great tool to use for this hack is Google Flights.
Go to Google Flights and enter your route and preferred date of travel. When the prices pop up, go to the calendar overview and look at all the pricing options around your preferred date. Cheaper rates are usually flights with stopovers. We examine these flight times to see which flights have short stopover times and do not involve overnight stays – stopovers with three children in tow can be a lot of hassle and added expense if not planned carefully. Sometimes there are other bonuses too! For example, on our round-the-world trip, we utilized this hack to fly from Honolulu to Christchurch in New Zealand. Flights were very expensive and most ‘direct’ flights involved either returning to Los Angeles or flying further to double back to Christchurch, changing planes in Auckland or Sydney. We found a cheap flight with Fiji Airways that stopped in Apia, Samoa and Nadi, Fiji, with only very short stops involved. It was perfect but then we decided to contact the airline to find out if we could extend the stopover. We discovered we were allowed to extend the stopover at one of the two locations for no extra cost. We ended up spending the money we saved on a ‘direct’ flight (over one thousand dollars) on a fantastic two weeks exploring Samoa!
