Everyone wants to find cheap airfare, but most people don’t seem to fully understand how to do it. There’s a lot of “rules of thumb” floating around that some people swear but they aren’t always accurate. The best way to get the cheapest airfare is to be flexible, put on flight alerts as early as possible and then continue to monitor those flights after you booked. Of course, there’s a lot more to it than that so we’ll cover a number of basics first. Then we’ll walk you through how to use Google flights. Finally, we’ll show how you can change your flights to save money after your flight is booked.
The Basics
Before we get into using Google flights, there’s a number of basics you need to understand. It’ll help put everything into context and it will help you with your flight searches.
There’s no secret website with cheap fares
Everyone always asks where they can find the best airfare. What they don’t understand is that airfare is set by the airline as they issue the tickets. There is usually no website that discounts airline tickets. The prices will be the same everywhere you book except some sites/apps charge a booking fee (i.e. Hopper).
You’re usually better off booking directly with the airline
I am a big fan of booking third party when it comes to rental cars, hotels and cruises. However, I usually suggest booking airfare directly with the airline. Regardless of where you book, you’ll get next to nothing back on Rakuten. Thus, there’s little incentive to book third party. By booking direct, you can ensure that you can modify your flights for free. This helps with price drops and schedule changes.
Rules of thumb aren’t always 100% accurate (when to book flights)
By their very nature, rules of thumb are not 100% accurate so that headline might seem odd, but we really have to emphasize that because a lot of people swear by them. There are two big ones when it comes to flights: 1) book X amount of days out and 2) fly on Tuesday, Wednesday and Saturday. Flight prices vary wildly. A lot of these rules of thumb came from running statistics but that doesn’t mean it still works or that it will work for your flight. I think the only rule you really need to know is that last minute flights are more expensive. Flights start getting more expensive about 2 to 3 weeks out.
Let’s look at just one example, EWR to LAX one way. Between now and the next 21 days, prices are elevated. After that they are cheap all the way up to the holidays. You can find a cheap flight one to four months out. Just about every Tuesday, Wednesday and Saturday during this time period has the lowest price. However, there are a few other days that have this same price included Thursday, Friday and Sunday. So, if you were to crunch these statistics, you’d say that Tuesday, Wednesday and Saturday have the best fares but that would be obscuring the fact that there are a few other days of the week that have the exact same fare. Furthermore, this doesn’t account for the fact that some of the fares a few months out may drop to match or even beat that low price at some point. So yes, rules of thumb are helpful but with Google flights, you don’t really need to worry about them as you can see everything right there.
Search for one ticket at a time
A big mistake people make is to search for more than one ticket at a time. Airfare is divided up into “fare buckets”. Assume a plane has 80 economy seats left that are all the same price (no exit rows, etc). While it appears that they are all the same price and the cheap airfare you see may only be available for a limited number of seats regardless of seat location. That’s called a fare bucket and there could be just one or two seats left in the lowest fare bucket. The next fare bucket could have 5 seats and the next could have 3. So if you were to see a $150 ticket that is normally $300, you probably wouldn’t be able to buy 20 tickets for that price.
The problem here is that when you try to book more than one ticket, it will automatically put both tickets in the higher fare bucket if there is only one seat left in that lower fare bucket. Let’s assume the lowest fare bucket is $150 and the next is $200. There’s only one seat left at $100. If you try to book two tickets, they’ll charge you $400 for both tickets. By booking one ticket at a time, you can get one at $150 and the other at $200. If you book both separately but at the same time, you can often can both tickets at $150.
Of course, there are times when there is more than one ticket in the lowest fare bucket. So, you need to first search for just one ticket and then when you find the price you want, add the other tickets. If they are all the same price, book them. If not, book them separately but at the same time.
Airline prices are incredibly dynamic
Airfare can change rapidly based upon any number of factors including fare buckets as indicated above. The more you wait around and think about it, the more likely you are to miss out on the fare. Your best bet is to book first and ask questions later because…
You can cancel your flight within 24 hours
This is a law and I don’t think enough people know about this. You have exactly 24 hours to get a full refund. Keep in mind that this isn’t a calendar day, it’s 24 hours. So, if you book a flight on Tuesday at 8pm, you have until Wednesday at 7:59pm to get a full refund. So, if you see a great deal and you’re not really sure if it’ll work or you need to talk to someone, book the flight and then cancel it within 24 hours if it’s not going to work out.
Airfare sales can happen at any time so start as early as possible
As we’ve already discussed, you can’t assume that the best price will be within a certain time window. An airfare sale can happen at any time although I don’t think you’ll see too many within two weeks of the flight. Thus, you should put on a flight alert as early as possible to keep an eye on the price.
Holidays are expensive but you can book in advance to save money
This should be common sense, but I often run into people that are shocked that prices around Thanksgiving or other holidays are expensive. Same with the summer. Airline prices are set by supply and demand so if you want to travel when everyone else is traveling, you can’t expect to get a great deal. What you can do is book at least several months in advance. Most people don’t plan things out in advance, so they start booking summer and holiday travel only about 6 to 8 weeks in advance. You may find cheaper flight by booking several months in advance.
Learn the basics of basic economy
If you’re not looking to acquire miles or gain airline status, basic economy can be a great way to save money on flights. While the rules may vary from one airline to another, there are a few things that are rather standard. You’re not going to be able to check a bag, you won’t get to choose your seat, you may not sit with the person you’re flying with, and you’ll be boarding last. You also won’t be able to make any changes or cancellations and the amount of miles you get may be less (or you may get nothing). Most airlines will allow you to bring a carry-on bag but United does not. Be sure to fully understand what the restrictions are before you book.
You can also use a credit card to get around some of these restrictions. Read this article for more on that topic.
Should you book a low-cost carrier?
Just about everyone knows about Spirit and Frontier but there are other low-cost carriers out there such as Allegiant, Avelo, Breeze and Sun Country. These airlines have a lot of pros and cons to consider. The pros are obviously low fares, but they also have direct flights. The bigger airlines work with more of a hub and spoke systems where flights between two smaller airports have to connect through a hub. These other airlines have more direct flights between smaller airports. So instead of traveling for 6 hours, you can just get to where you’re going in 2 hours.
Of course, there are a lot of cons. You have to pay for anything besides a randomly assigned seat and a very small personal item. Those fees can really add up and eliminate any cost savings over the bigger airlines. They also operate with less slack so just about every plane and flight crew are going somewhere at any one time. If a problem develops, your flight could be cancelled. With the bigger airlines, they have reserve crew and planes which helps reduce, but not eliminate, travel problems. The seats are also rather uncomfortable and there’s no in-flight entertainment. It’s as bare bones as it gets.
Frontier offers all you can fly passes but as we indicated in this article, we don’t suggest buying them. Most people won’t get value out of them.
Buying tickets at the airport
Speaking of low cost carriers, you can save about $23 one-way buy buying your tickets at the airport. Without getting too detailed here, you can save the Carrier Interface Charge by buying your ticket at the airport. So for a couple, you could save almost $100 on a round trip flight. Problem with that is that you have to get there, potentially pay for parking and then wait in line. These carriers may also have limited ticket hours as some of the ticket agents may have to also work the gate. If you’re already at the airport for another flight, it makes sense to buy your ticket there for your next one. Otherwise, you have to weigh the time and effort versus the cost savings.
Should you consider Southwest?
People either love or hate this airline. It’s in a class of its own. I hate when people refer to this as a low-cost airline because their fares can be more expensive than United, American and Delta. You can only book their flights on the Southwest website, so you won’t find them on Google flights. While you get free checked bags, you don’t get to select your seat. Instead, you are assigned a boarding group which leads to people rushing into the plane to get the best seats. That’s not my thing but for some people, they don’t mind. You can often buy discounted Southwest gift cards at Costco which helps you save money. Their app also makes it very easy to get refunds for price reductions. If Southwest is an option for you, it may be something to consider.
The more flexible you are, the more you’ll save
People will often contact us and ask how they can save money by going to a certain place at a certain time (usually during a busy time of year). That’s a tall order. You can save a lot of money by being flexible as to when you travel and where you’re going. So instead of saying that you want to go to Paris, how about going to Europe. You can then be more open. If flights to Paris are $900 but you can get to Munich for $500, you are better off going to Munich instead.
Airfare Watchdog
If you are very flexible, Airfare Watchdog might be a good service for you. It’s free and they’ll show you the best deals for a specific route regardless of dates. It’s another great tool to help determine what a good price is. They also have a feature that works kind of like Google Flight alerts but instead of alerting you to a specific flight on a specific day, they’ll send you flight alerts for a route. So everyday you’ll get flight alerts for the best deal on that route. You can also sign up to get the best deals from an airport. The only issue is that most of the deals are on Spirit and Frontier so if you’re not interested in flying either of those airlines, you might not be too thrilled with the results. It would be great if you could filter those out. It’s still worth checking out because they do feature just about every airline.
It’s easy to get around Europe
If you haven’t been to Europe before, you may not know that Europe has an excellent train system. This is important because it might be cheaper for you to fly to one airport and then take a train to your actual destination instead of worry about connecting or more expensive flights.
You can also fly into one airport and then book a separate flight to your final destination. Inter-European flights can be very cheap. You could save hundreds of dollars by booking your flight this way.
Using Google Flights
Track prices as far in advance as possible
As indicated previously, search for your flights as far in advance as you possibly can. Even if you aren’t 100% sure what your travel plans are, search for some flights and put on a flight alert. A sale can come up any time. Once you select your flights, you’ll see a little slider towards the top right of the screen that says “Track Prices”. Click that slider button and a new window will pop up. You’ll then have the option to just track that flight or to add all available flights. You’ll then get emailed when the price changes which could be just about every day. A sale can happen at any time.
Search for one-way flights first, then search round trip (domestic flights)
I always suggest shopping for one-way flights first. Google flights will not always allow you to see all flights when you search for a round trip. You’ll see all of your options for the departing flight but once you select a flight, you’ll often only see the returning flights on the same airline. As a result, you may be missing a cheaper return flight on a different airline. Even if the best return flight is the same, there’s usually no benefit to booking a round trip unless it saves you money. In our experience, this is rare so unless you are going to save money there’s just no reason to book a round trip.
While there’s too much to get into here, consider this scenario. You book a round trip flight with the same airline. Your departing flight is delayed for 3 days and it’s only a 5-day flight. You can pay a cash fare to get out the next day on another airline which doesn’t have an interline agreement with the first airline. If you take that other flight, your return flight will likely get cancelled. Had you booked a one way, it’ll still be there.
Please note that this usually doesn’t work for international flights. For whatever reason, roundtrips are usually cheaper. As always, compare the prices.
Check the prices of connections separately
Ok this one seems really weird, but I’ve seen it work. Let’s say you want to go from Tampa to Hawaii. You find a flight from TPA to HNL with a connection in LAX. Well, it could be cheaper to book that exact same flight combo as two different flights instead of one flight. Why? I have no idea but if you do, please let me know. I actually saved $50 per ticket doing this. Just make sure you are booking with the exact same airline. This way if you miss your connection, they’ll help you. If it’s a different airline you might be out of luck. It can’t hurt to call the airline and ask them to link the flights together either. This doesn’t always work but it can’t hurt to check. You may also see other options this way that for some reason were not provided.
How do you know when you have the best price?
The simple answer is you don’t really. But the good news is that you don’t have to worry about this too much anymore (as we’ll discuss below). However, if you track prices long enough, you’ll know a good deal when you see it. For example, I was tracking a flight for months. it was over $500. Then out of nowhere it went under $300. That’s pretty obvious that this was a great deal, so I jumped on it.
However, Google flights will also help you. When you search for a flight, you’ll see a box in the middle of the results that tells you about the prices. For example, you could see something like this: “Prices are currently low — $50 cheaper than usual for your search”. Further to the right a little you’ll see “View price history” with a little arrow. If you click that arrow, you’ll see a graph showing the prices over a period of time. Of course, just because the current price is the lowest doesn’t mean that it won’t go lower but at least you’ll know that you got a better deal than you would have if you booked earlier.
You could also look at other dates to see what the prices are. If you go back to that EWR to LAX flight I referenced earlier, I indicated that there were Friday flights that were just as cheap as the Tuesday, Wednesday and Saturday flights. That cheap Friday flight was about 2 months out. Let’s assume your Friday flight is 3 months out. Assuming there’s no big holidays around that time frame, you may want to wait a few weeks to see if that Friday flight drops down to the same price.
Be flexible with your search dates
As we indicated, the more flexible you are the more you’ll save. You can find some amazing deals if you are flexible with your dates and destinations. Search for any flight on Google flights and you’ll see two things on the results page: “Date Grid” and “Price Graph”. Date Grid allows you to search all around the dates you have selected. This allows you to see price changes if you move your dates in any direction. For example, if you were going away from Wednesday to Sunday, you may find that it was cheaper to go Monday to Saturday. So not only are the dates different but the length of the trip is different as well.
The Price Graph keeps the length of the trip the same but shows you all the prices that are publicly available. This can do a few things for you. First, you can see how much you save if you move your flight backwards or forwards a few days. Second, you can see the cheapest time to go. This helps if you are very flexible. Third, this shows how cheap this flight can get which may help you determine what is a good price as previously indicated.
Be flexible with your departure airports
Some people only live near one airport. Other people live near several. It might not be ideal, but it might make sense to leave out of a different airport than you normally do to get a better deal. Let’s say you live in Northern New Jersey. EWR is obviously your main airport. However, you could fly out of PHL, JFK and LGA as annoying as some of those airports may be to get to. So, it can’t hurt to search those airports as well. Google flights makes this easy. Just type in the airport code and then type up a comma. Keep doing this until you’re done. You can search several airports at the same time. Then you can decide if the cost savings justify the hassle of driving further.
Be flexible with your search locations
This is one of my favorite features of Google Flights. Let’s say you want to go to Florida from November 7 to November 14. You don’t care where you in Florida you are going to go. You live in New Jersey but you’re willing to drive. Your main focus is on getting the best deal possible.
As indicated, we normally suggest searching for one-way flights but it might be easier to search for a roundtrip here in the event that the return flight is more expensive from one destination. It helps to know the airport codes. You’re willing to drive to you type in your dates. In the first box, which is the origin you’ll type in EWR, PHL, JFK and LGA. For the destination, simply type in Florida. This will then bring up a different screen than you would normally see. You’ll see a map with prices for the different airports in Florida.
The results are also listed on the left-hand side. You can use the filters above those results to adjust for number of stops, airlines, price, etc. This can help you find the best deal.
You can use this same method to search for flights to Europe, Canada, Asia or just leave it blank or type in “anywhere”. So let’s say you want to leave from those airports in the NY area and you’re willing to go anywhere during Thanksgiving. If you were to search those airports and leave the destination blank, you’ll find that you can book flights to several destinations for under $400 including San Francisco and Orlando. Normally not good prices but good prices for a busy holiday weekend. We used this method to go to Mexico for a really cheap price during Thanksgiving one year.
Multi-city flights
This is another one of my favorite things about Google Flights. Click where it says Round trip and change it to Multi-city. From here, you can set up all sorts of creative bookings. Have two weeks to explore the west coast? You can book a flight from Newark to Seattle, from Seattle to San Francisco from San Francisco to LA and from LA back to Newark all on the same ticket. I know we said to check one way flights but you should but also try it this way. Sometimes this will keep things easy and possibly save you money. You can also do this with Europe
This same feature allows you to book an open jaw flight which is when you change one of the airports. This is helpful if you are going to take a train trip or a cruise. Let’s say you want to fly to San Francisco, take an awesome train trip to Denver (highly recommended) and then fly home from Denver. You can use the multi-city feature to do just that. Or if you are on a cruise out of Europe you can fly into London and fly home from Rome. While this feature may not always save you money domestically, it will usually save you a ton internationally.
After you book
Price changes
If you thought you were done tracking the price because you booked your ticket, you’d be wrong. Most airlines now allow you to change your flight for no fee. As a result, you can capture price differences when the cost goes down. You’ll usually just get a travel credit that you can use towards a future flight but it’s still a good deal. While these travel credits will usually expire at some point, most people will book another flight before this happens. You can keep doing this over and over. Just don’t forget to use those travel credits.
Changing your trip
Related to the above, you can change your trip to change the day or time of a flight, even if you’re in the middle of your trip. For example, I was in Big Bend National Park and a big storm was coming. There was really no reason for me to stay there for two more days so I changed my flight to leave the next day. The price was the same and there are no more change fees so this cost me nothing. Same goes for if you wanted to extend your flight. You originally booked an early flight but now you’d prefer to fly out late. Check the app and see if it will cost anything to do this. It’s a great way to extend your trip for free if there’s no price difference.
Still need help?
If you read through all of this and you still need help, join our Facebook group Travel Better, Travel More. We have a great community of travelers that will help answer your questions and find you the best flights.