{This is a repost from my blog archives. I wrote this in 2016 – most all of the tips here are consistent with how we book flights today, even though our life is very different.}
Welcome to the second part of my Travel Prep Series! As mentioned in my previous travel prep post, after traveling often over the past few years, I feel like I now have a solid strategy in place for planning a trip, and I’m excited to share that with you! None of these tips are life-changing. They are just the simple steps I take to prepare for a trip before our departure date. So far, using these steps, we have managed to see many parts of the world on the many (mostly) seamless trips we have taken over the past five years.
For part two of this series, I’m sharing the details of my flight booking process. Using these steps often leads to the most optimal flight available at the best fare. It’s not foolproof, but it works for me most of the time.
Planning vacations is one of my favorite things to do, so I don’t mind taking the time to get the best results. This process is probably not helpful to someone who doesn’t want to spend more than a few minutes looking for flights – it takes a lot of time over the span of several weeks. However, if you are willing to take the time, you will be happy with your results more often than not. To explain the process, I’m going to use a trip I recently booked as an example. I booked a flight from Dallas-Ft. Worth to Boston for a trip I’m taking with my sister this September.
(I link to several tools in this post; however, this is just for your convenience. I do not get compensated in any way by these companies.)
1. Head on over to your favorite flight search tool.
You can start the flight booking process as soon as you have picked your destination for your vacation. The best place to start looking is a flight search tool (aka a fare aggregator). My favorites are kayak.com or google.com/flights. {Note: At the time of this re-post, I always use google.com/flights.}
2. Plug in your “perfect” itinerary.
At this point, you’ve already referenced your calendar and selected the approximate timing of your trip when picking your destination. Now it’s time to see what the options are for your “perfect” itinerary: your pick of specific dates and airports that you envision for your trip if money were no object. Put in the specific dates you’d like to leave and return home. For your departure airport, I’d usually pick the nearest airport to your home, or wherever you will be on the departure date; however, some people have a favorite home airport that they are willing to travel further for. Your arrival airport should be the airport in the most convenient location to your destination. If you are going straight back to your departure city after your trip, select the “round-trip” option and choose the number of people in your travel group. Click “search”.
For this flight to Boston, the departure airport is DFW because my sister lives in Dallas (I booked a separate ticket from Austin for myself). We are planning on a long weekend in Boston, so I picked Friday as our departure date and Monday as our return date.
3. Look through your options.
Within a matter of seconds, you will have a list of flight options. If it doesn’t automatically show your flights from cheapest to most expensive, select “Price” in the sorting options. Start filtering out the options you don’t consider to be an option for you (e.g. a 5:00am flight or a flight with more than one layover might not be an option for someone). In Kayak, you can filter out these options and more using the sliders on the left-hand side (see screen shot below).
Now that your most ideal flights are listed, start thinking about the prices and airlines shown. If you have no airline preference, just pay attention to the prices. Be aware that certain budget airlines, such as Spirit shown below, will tack on more fees than other airlines (e.g. for a carry-on bag, for choosing and reserving a seat, etc.). As an example, when searching for this flight for my sister, I skipped the Spirit Airlines options even though it seemed much cheaper based on the results; I know that once the extra fees are added, it probably wouldn’t be much cheaper than one of my preferred airlines.
Jot down your top two or three flight options.
One other thing for U.S.-based travelers, don’t forget Southwest! Southwest Airlines offers good fares on many routes but does not allow their flights to be shown on Kayak or Google Flights. I always check Southwest’s website at the same time as I am looking through my other flight options.
4. Confirm the price of a flight by going to the airline’s website.
Sometimes you will find that a flight is cheaper when you look at the actual airline’s website, and you may even see more schedule options.
5. Switch to an incognito browser.
You can do this in Google Chrome by going to the menu (top right corner button with three bars) and selecting “new incognito window”. This keeps the airline from remembering you and hiking up the price since it knows you’ve looked for the same flight before. I’ve never had this price increase happen to me when I’ve stayed in the same browser, but there are plenty of people that say this happens, so I usually go to an incognito browser.
6. Get creative.
Getting creative with your flight search can be the most time consuming part of this process, but it often results in the most savings. Here are a few ways to “get creative” while searching for flights:
- Look up flights using other nearby airports and dates. Play around with different possible combinations. If you see a better deal, write it down! For my sister’s flight to Boston, I made sure to check flights departing Thursday night and returning home Sunday night too. I also looked at the options for flights departing from the other airport in Dallas, Dallas Love Field.
- Look up one-way flights using the flight search tool. You can often get the best deal by booking two one-way flights on different airlines. Kayak and other search tools will try to do this for you (see “hacker fare” options in screen shot above), but they don’t catch all of the deals. Once again, confirm those one-way flight prices directly on the airline’s website.
- Use points and miles. One-way flights are especially valuable if you want to use airline miles but don’t have the full amount for a round trip. My husband and I book two one-way flights all the time using points one way and dollars the other way. Some airlines, like Delta, will even allow you to book some flights with both points and dollars, which helps to reduce the number of points needed even further. You might be surprised what you can do with your miles even if you feel like you don’t have a lot. I ended up booking my sister’s flight to Boston as a one-way flight on JetBlue so that I could use some of my American Airlines AAdvantage miles for her return flight. (And JetBlue had the best price on a one-way flight from DFW to Boston).
7. Take a break (and check a Price Predictor).
If you are looking for flights at least three months before your trip, step away from the computer and take a break. At this point, I also like to check a “price predictor” to confirm that I’m not missing out on a low fare that will be going away soon. My favorite price predictor is the Hopper app. You type in your flight information and it advises whether you should book now or wait based on its analysis, and it even lets you know when it thinks the best time will be for you to book in the future. You can also ask it to “watch” a trip for you, and it will send you a notification if the price changes (for better or worse) and if it thinks you need to book.
8. Check your flights on Tuesdays or Wednesdays.
Continue to check the flights you jotted down once a week for the next couple of weeks, preferably on Tuesdays or Wednesdays. I’ve heard many people say that you can usually get the best flight deals on Tuesdays or Wednesdays, and I’ve seen this in my own experience as well. If it seems like your flight price is not fluctuating (and likely won’t change in your favor), it is probably time to think about booking.
9. Book on the airline website at least two months in advance.
I never book flights through flight search tools because I want to get the airline miles every time I fly, and most airline rewards programs do not give you miles when booking through a third party. You can book through whatever site you’d like as long as you confirm you are getting the good fare you found. Whenever you are ready to book your flight (no less than two months before your trip if possible), open that incognito browser and glance through your options one last time. If nothing has changed, book that flight! If prices have fluctuated, this is where I spend time going through my process all over again. Most people are probably ready to just get the flight booked and move on with life. Whatever you choose, I am willing to bet you will be happy you went through these steps once you’ve reach this point – because you have found your best flight deal possible given your preferences.
Once you’ve booked your flight, it’s time to start looking into your lodging for the trip. In my next post, I’ll share my process for booking a place to stay.
That’s my nine-step process for booking the best flights. This is always my second set of steps leading up to travel, and it’s probably the most exhausting. Do you have any other tips for getting the best flights? Share below in the comments!
{Thanks for reading! Want to know a little more about me? I’m a CPA learning how to balance a career with motherhood and regular travel while planting roots at home in the Austin, TX area. When I’m not exploring my home city with my husband Daniel and baby boy Carson or cuddling with my chubby orange cat Banana, I’m probably either out on a playdate with my son or planning, packing for, traveling to, or daydreaming about our next adventure. After all, my travel mug collection is never complete. If you have wanderlust too, be sure to follow me on Instagram (and InstaStories!), Pinterest, and Facebook, or subscribe to my blog!}
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