18 Jul 9 Flight hacks to save you hundreds

Booking international flights can be daunting but here are a few tips that have saved me thousands of dollars on airfare.  Disclaimer: all of my examples, save for one, are for economy; I’d rather splurge on a nice hotel for 5 days than the 5 hr flight.

1. Check multiple sites, always.
   • In looking for a one way flight from Panama City to Lima.  I checked Expedia first and I about fell over when I saw the $700 price tag. I looked on two other sites, Skyscanner and Momondo, and quickly found a flight for $400.  An extra 2 minutes of my life saved me $300.
2. Look from two devices.
   • Each device has a unique IP address and if bots know your habits, you might be getting higher prices.
   • Case in point, a few months ago I was booking a flight through Expedia and the same flight and dates were about $20 cheaper through my phone than my laptop.
3. If you’re taking a long haul flight with multiple connections, check flights from a larger hub.
   • For example, I was looking for a flight from Denver to Cairo in business class for someone and all roundtrip flights out of Denver were around $7,000. I decided to check flights from NYC to Cairo instead and found a flight for $2,500. That’s a massive savings and another, domestic flight can be bought to NYC.
4. Check out local airlines in the country of origin website.
   • What I mean by this is select the country you are flying in or around.
   • I was booking a flight on Chile’s discount airliner Sky and when I looked at the cost of the ticket from the United States the cost was $300.  When I selected my country as Chile, the cost came down to $50.
5. Miles – always collect miles.
   • It doesn’t matter what airline it is, I get the rewards account.  The reason being, you never know if you’ll be flying them again, or if they might be purchased by a bigger partner thus merging your accounts.
   • I wrote a more extensive blog on miles and points here. 
6. If you’ll be flying within a country, Google that country’s low cost carrier.
   • I’ve noticed that Google flights is starting to pull some of this data, but not always.
   • If you’re concerned about a low cost carriers rating and safety you can easily find that information here.
7. When possible be flexible with dates.
   • Sites like Skyscanner, Momondo, and Google flights will show you the costs a few days before and after your selected date.
8. Use Skiplagged
   • This is a unique service that searches your destination via more popular connections.
   • I used this once on a flight from Denver to Toronto.  The final destination was Montreal, but I just got off in Toronto.
   • The downside to this; you can’t check luggage or it will go to the final destination, and you can’t earn award miles because you do not complete the flight.
9. Buy a roundtrip ticket even if you only need a one way.
   • Occasionally it is cheaper to buy a full roundtrip flight than a one way.
   • I have done this twice on long haul, international flights and saved around $400 each time.
   • Once to Iceland, a one way from Denver was over $1,000.  However, by booking a roundtrip flight the cost went down to $660.   I simply didn’t take the return flight.

Know someone who travels a lot?  Share this with them!  Happy hunting!