In Search of a Deal- Flights

True or false? The biggest expense when traveling abroad is airfare. True. Unfortunately, there is no way around it. Flying thousands of miles can be expensive but there are definitely ways to cut the cost. Below are a few tips for finding that perfect flight.

Look for a Deal

All of the major airlines have sales periodically and sometimes they are actually a good deal. Sign up for their emails and keep an eye out for destinations you have in mind.

Kayak.com

Use a comparison website like Kayak.com. If you are willing to travel to a nearby airport, select the ‘include nearby’ option when you are entering your destination. For example, I live 10 minutes from an international airport but the airport 1 hour away is sometimes cheaper. Consider parking and transportation to the airport and figure out what saves you more money. After you enter your destination, dates and number of people, turn on the ‘flexible dates’ feature and select +/- 3 days. This will give you a helpful table in your results showing what day of the week the flight is cheapest.

From there, you can select all types of different options: number of stops, trip length, cabin preference, airline and more. Tip- limit your number of stops if possible and keep trip length, which includes layovers, in mind. Check-in for international flights is a lot earlier than domestic. So ideally, layovers should be 2-4 hours. You don’t want to be sitting in an airport all day and you want to leave enough time in between flights just in case your previous one is delayed. Trust me, I have ran through an airport just like the scene from Home Alone and it wasn’t pretty. Overall, play around with the filters to find the flight that is perfect for you. Keep in mind, not all airlines are on Kayak. Southwest is one of them. This is especially important for domestic and connecting flights.

Low-Cost Airlines

There are also a lot of great “low-cost airlines” that fly out of major U.S. cities. Norwegian Air and WOW Air are two examples. Flights on these airlines can be as low as a couple hundred dollars each way. Look for cheap flights on Southwest or JetBlue separately to the hub nearest to you. The last time we went to Europe, we took a Southwest flight to Los Angeles and then a direct flight on Norwegian Air to London. I planned accordingly so we had a couple hours in Los Angeles before our flight to London left and the same on the way home. It was a positive experience and easy to book both flights separately. Norwegian currently flies out of Baltimore, Boston, Fort Lauderdale, Orlando, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, New York and Oakland. If you don’t mind a layover in Reykjavik, Iceland, WOW Air is another great option. WOW currently flies out of Boston, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Washington D.C. Take advantage of the layover in Reykjavik and spend a day exploring before your next flight. For both of these airlines, flights go to several locations in Europe. If your final destination isn’t one of these cities, it is easy to catch a flight to reach where you want to go. Check out Ryanair and EasyJet for cheap flights all over Europe.

In the end, if you are patient and do a little research, you will find a good deal. There are a lot of great deals out there if you are willing to be flexible with your travel dates and layovers. It might sound silly but don’t give up. Once you find a flight that is in your budget, BOOK IT!