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Perhaps you’re sat in the local having a few too many glasses of wine with close friends when one suggests going away to Europe next weekend for a gals on tour trip. Or perhaps you were channel-hopping after a long day at work and stumbled on a documentary on a far-flung village in Cambodia that has an uncanny resemblance to your ideal of Eden. Maybe, and just maybe, you’ve realised it’s now or never and you’re one step away from quitting your job, buying a backpack and drinking in as many cultures as you possibly can over the next year.
Your dreams are set, your friends are ready to go, or perhaps you’ve even gathered up the courage to brave it alone! But then you see the flight costs and your heart starts to sink. This trip is going to cost more than you thought…
Not necessarily!!
Over-budget flights belong only to those who have to travel in peak period (i.e. school holidays, christmas) and those who are quite happy to splurge a bit to get a comfy seat. Whilst there’s nothing wrong with treating yourself to an upgrade every once in a while, those who travel a lot can get bogged down with wasting money on transport rather than experiences, and watching your budget drift in to unknown air spaces can be frustrating!
So after reviewing the website this week (can you tell the difference?) I realised I hadn’t posted a travel tip update in forever!! Sorry guys! Also, soon I will be off to Greece for the TBEX Europe Conference and so I have been spending a lot of time this week on finding cheap flights & figured I’d let you all in on my secrets!
1. Do Your Research
As regular followers of this blog will know… I have a bit of a fangirl relationship with the SkyScanner App! Of all the flight price comparison sights, I find this one the best both on desktop and through their great app. Not only do they search countless airlines, they make sure to include the budget airlines that a lot of other great comparison sights leave out!
STA for example have a great search and booking site for longer distant flights and have the option to search for deals for Students, for those Under 26, and for 26+ but for shorter flights they seem not to include budget airlines. Which I find a huge disappointment as they’re doing a huge disservice to their student target market!
Kayak is also an extremely useful tool for booking flights and checking comparisons between airlines. Like SkyScanner, it also includes a range of budget airline offers and therefore allows you to find the cheapest flights on offer!
The slideshow below compares the offers found on each website mentioned above for the date of 14th October for a flight from London to Thessaloniki. Both Kayak & SkyScanner found flights for £56 whereas STA’s lowest offer was £107!
1.2. Be Flexible
The main reason I prefer SkyScanner above all other price comparison sights is for it’s ‘whole month’ search feature! This is great for long term travellers as chances are you can be pretty flexible with your dates and being able to see prices for an entire month or two in advance gives you a huge advantage when trying to find the cheapest flight possible between two destinations!
Kayak, whilst they allow some flexibility in their search, doesn’t seem to have mastered the month view feature. Their search form gives flexibility only of up to 2 or 3 days, which may be convenient for some, but if you have total flexibility over your dates I would still say look first at SkyScanner!
1.3. Go Direct
Whilst I always begin my flight search with the price comparison sights listed above, I double check everything by confirming that the price offered is the same, or lower, than the price offered by the airline directly from their own website. Most of the time the prices match up, and therefore it’s up to you who you wish to book through.
When I’m in Europe I almost exclusively fly with RyanAir. Whilst they get a lot of negative feedback regarding their costly baggage fees and other extras, I can’t fault their service and that to me comes above all. As often as I can I travel with a carry on to avoid baggage fees, and I have found that they are always on time, if not ahead of time! In addition, like I said before the service is always given with a smile and as I have always worked in customer-facing roles I really appreciate this!
2. Keep Up To Date
2.1. Airline Newsletters
Let’s face it, more newsletter clogging up our already overflowing inbox is the last thing anybody wants. But if I were you I’d make an exception for airline newsletters!
Sign up for all your favourite airlines as often they will send out subscriber-only offers that are open for about a week sometimes even just 24 hours! By getting this news delivered straight to your inbox you’ll never miss a great offer again! If you hate the idea of giving your phone more reasons to let you know you’ve received more mail, set up a separate folder and forward all your flight-related newsletter subscriptions to that one folder to avoid clogging your inbox. Just don’t forget to check that folder regularly!
2.2 App Alerts
Another great feature that both Kayak & SkyScanner have as part of their mobile apps is the ability to sign up for an account and save your favourite trips! So if you’re looking for great deals on a certain flight, they will alert you when an offer comes in that is cheaper than that of the original search!
And what’s more likely to get your attention than an app alert?
3. Consider Alternative Routes
3.1. Make Use of Flight Route Maps
About a year ago I was in Portugal trying to find a way to Oktoberfest…as you can imagine the direct flights to Munich were far out of my budget. Twice the price of flying from London, I tried to figure out a cheaper alternative route that didn’t involve flying direct!
Almost all airlines have a page on their site dedicated to showing their various flight routes. It can be a fairly long process, but by scrolling for all the possible airlines that fly near your desired to location, and not directly to your location, you can then consider getting alternative transport for the final leg of the trip.
The links below the images are to the route maps for three major budget airlines in Europe…
RyanAir – Route Map
Wizz Air – Route Map
EasyJet – Route Map
3.2. Find Alternative Transport
So by researching cheap flights to an airport that is a little further from your intended destination that you had planned, you now need to figure out how to get the rest of the way.
There are so many rail and bus companies out there to research, but my favourite comparison travel site and app has to be Rome2Rio. All you have to do is enter your start location (so the airport you’ve found) and your intended final destination, and Rome2Rio calculates all the different methods by which you could get there, as well as estimate prices!
I hope this helps you to book a ticket and just go!
Lots of love,
