How to find cheap flights for your holiday travel plans

Holiday season travel is special and stressful, especially when it comes to finding cheap flights at the last minute. With omicron cases surging across the United States, there are more concerns regarding travel than ever before. If you are planning to travel and have not booked a flight yet, you can try out the following steps to save money on travel fare.

Since travel requires vaccination, testing, and other safety protocols saving a significant amount of money will help you cover additional costs when you fly domestically or internationally. Finding low fares might take several hours, and you may not always see low fares. Here are some of our best hacks to find cheaper flights.

Go incognito

Your browser will suggest flights based on your cookies that are based on your search history and the number of pages you have visited to compare flight prices. These suggestions may not be the best deal always and would also tempt you to make a quick decision. These suggestions may also be different from the promoted sites, making you feel that they are genuinely the best deal available for now. But that isn’t true.

If you enter the same details of your journey in a private or incognito window, you will see different results. This is because your cookies are reset every time you open an incognito window. Now your search results will be unaffected by your past browsing history. However, this doesn’t keep you away from promoted content. Beware of promotions and advertisements that may not be genuine.

How to open an incognito window 

For Google Chrome and Safari on Mac:

The Incognito window is opened by Command + Shift + N.

For Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge on PC:

The Incognito window is opened by Ctrl + Shift + N.

For Mozilla Firefox on Mac:

The Incognito window is opened by Command + Shift + P.

For Mozilla Firefox on PC:

The Incognito window is opened by Ctrl + Shift + P.

As browsers always say, keep in mind that private browsing doesn’t keep you anonymous on the internet.

If you are not comfortable with keyboard shortcuts, you can open a web browser and click File, New Incognito Window or Private Browsing Window. After searching for each flight, close the browser and open it again for the next flight. By doing this, you get fresh results for every search.

Flight search engines

Most flight comparison sites keep adding suggestions to the list every day. This makes the search more tiring and repetitive. However, there are a few reliable websites. You can bookmark these websites to use them the next time you search for flights:

• Kiwi.com
• CheapOair
• Skyscanner
• Airfare Watchdog
• Trip Advisor
• Jetradar
• Momondo US Search Flights
• Expedia
• Skyscanner
• Kayak 

Some comparison websites may not include budget airlines. If you already know a budget airline popular in your area, you can compare these website results to those budget prices.

Budget airlines

Budget airlines will surely help you save a lot of money. However, you will not get the amenities like legroom, prepaid food, drinks, or movies offered by other big airlines. Nevertheless, you can use the saved money to treat yourself to something extra at your destination.

Read everything

• Never skip reading the fine print before booking. 
• Check airport location as some budget airlines fly to airports away from the city.
• Check for luggage restrictions and requirements. Follow all requirements and guidelines; you can never sneak into the plane with heavier or more suitcases.
• Print your ticket. Even if you have signed everything online, most airlines will require you to print the confirmation or the boarding pass. Don’t go to the airport with the email; they will charge you a fee.
• Air Asia, Tiger Air, Jetstar, and Ryanair often offer the cheapest flights. Follow these airlines on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. You can subscribe for email alerts to be notified about new promotions.

Find connecting flights

If your flight flies across different major cities to reach your destination, you can check the prices for a separate flight from the connecting city to the destination. This will be more useful in international travel as local flights or other flights from nearby countries will be significantly cheaper than your flight. If you are doing this, you must be very careful about the timings. Book the next flight that will take off several hours after you reach. And be prepared with a backup plan if you miss your connecting flight because of an unexpected delay.

Fly when fares are low

You can check all the flight prices for the entire month. On some days, the flight prices will be lower. In Skyscanner, you can also find a Cheapest Month page with low fares. You can plan your holiday travel accordingly and book the cheap flights that suit you best.

Adjust your travel plans

You can change your plan and fly to another place if you can save a lot of money by going to that city. Kayak and Skyscanner always show a list of the cheapest places to travel. You can also get suggestions from Travel Agent who might teach you the nitty-gritty details needed to travel to a specific area.

If you see it, book it

Don’t expect fares to go down on the departure date. If you have made a plan, book the flight because it’s likely that the fares will go up as the departure date nears. Meanwhile, here are some tips on how to get the best deals when you make last-minute holiday plans.

You might get lucky

Sometimes you might see unreal fares on the website. This is similar to what you might see while booking a cab using an app. When you refresh, the fare might increase once again. But if you book exactly when the fare is low, your booking will be confirmed at an unimaginable low price. That covers our best hacks on bagging cheap flights for your holiday travel.