- 20 tips to help you find cheap flights in 2022
and beyond.
I'm Chris,
this is Yellow Productions.
I do travel guides that are fun, informative,
and entertaining.
This video is part of my travel advice series,
where I'm helping you get the most bang
for your buck on travel,
not just flights, but hotels, rental cars.
You'll find more of those videos at the end of this video
or in the description.
And before we get into number one,
I would like to thank this video sponsor, TopCashback.
We'll talk more about how TopCashback
can help you save money on flights later on.
Now let's get right into it with tip number one.
Don't be a sheep.
Don't go where everybody else is going.
Where everybody else is going
is probably going to be expensive
because there's more demand than there is capacity.
You want to think unlike everybody else
and think about
whether the destinations that have lots of flights,
but not many people going to them.
For example, New York City.
New York City is served by almost every carrier there is
in the world
and there's not a lot of people
going to New York City.
Why?
New York City, big business destination,
not a big leisure destination.
So there's a lot of extra seats.
There's a lot of extra planes
and there's a lot of big planes going to New York City.
So you're gonna find cheap flights going to destinations
like New York City.
Now, if you're going to a ski destination for this winter,
that is likely going to be really expensive.
Why?
Ski destinations typically are served by small planes
with very little frequency.
And so there is often more demand than there is capacity,
which makes prices go up.
Now one leisure destination
that is actually still pretty cheap,
that also has a lot of demand is Hawaii.
Why is Hawaii still really cheap to fly to?
Well because there's still more capacity
than there is demand.
Every air carrier has repositioned their flights
that used to do business routes
and now they're sending them to Hawaii
because they want to capitalize on all of the interest
and all of the potential new customers
that are flying to Hawaii.
Also, Hawaii still doesn't have
a lot of international visitors,
which made up for a significant portion of their visitors
so you can still find cheap flights to leisure destinations,
like Hawaii,
but think where's a place that has lots of flights,
big planes,
and that if you like check the seat maps
and things like that,
those planes look fairly empty.
Tip number two,
be on the lookout for new routes.
With the way the world's changed
there's less business travel
and more leisure travel.
People are going to different places
and have different travel patterns than they used to.
And so many air carriers are launching new routes.
When they do launch a new route,
that's typically when they have a big blowout Bonanza sale.
So be on the lookout for news, emails,
things on air carrier websites
that announced new routes.
And you want to be like in the first
three days that those tickets go on sale
because they'll typically be dropping the prices way low
when they first come out to drum up demand
and excitement for those routes.
A great example of this is actually the trip
we just took to Vancouver, Canada.
We live in Orange County, California.
Air Canada just started offering a new flight
from Orange County to Vancouver
that they've never offered before.
Why?
Because Canada just reopened to tourism from the US
and Air Canada's planes likely were doing nothing
except sitting around.
And so they said,
"Hey, why don't we at least capitalize
on some of those people from Orange County
that might want to come here to Canada,
since a lot of people can't come from other places."
And when they first put those flights on sale,
they were like a couple hundred bucks round trip
for the tickets.
Look later, they're $500,
but in the first three days quite cheap.
Tip number three,
when you're looking for flights,
consider alternate airports.
If you're flying into Los Angeles, for example,
you might think I'll go to LAX,
that's the major airport,
Did you know, there are seven airports
that serve the Los Angeles region?
In addition to LAX, you could fly into Burbank, Ontario,
Long Beach, Orange County, John Wayne, San Diego.
And if you're coming from Latin America,
you might even consider flying into Tijuana, Mexico.
Yes, any of those airports,
other than LAX might actually be cheaper,
they might be more expensive,
but you know what,
finding cheap flights is a little bit of research.
It doesn't come magically.
So look at a city and look up other airports
than just the major one.
For example, London Heathrow is the airport
many tourists fly into London,
but it's also the most expensive.
There are five other airports that service London
that you might find cheaper than London Heathrow.
Flying into New York City,
there's three airports in New York City,
LaGuardia, JFK, and New York.
And if you really want to get advanced thinking about
what flights are cheaper in different airports,
think about what's the majority carrier in an airport.
For example,
in New York, the majority carry is United Airlines.
And so they're probably going to be
the most expensive in New York,
but the other carriers that are smaller
and have less flights in New York,
are probably going to be cheaper than United
because they're trying to compete against United,
the big carrier in that airport.
So think about the uncarriers,
or the smaller carriers in airports
at your destination for cheaper flights.
Tip number four,
consider airlines with flexible change policies.
In today's world, where everything's changing,
and you really don't seem to know
whether you're going to be able to go someplace tomorrow
or the next day,
really look at those change fees
before you book your flight.
Because change fees,
if you do have to change or cancel,
what are the refund fees they could eat you alive
or eat you out of the entire ticket value?
So I think you should,
if you hadn't valued free changes or free refunds before,
definitely consider that higher in your priority list
for 2022.
And remember that change fees or refund fees
are typically per passenger per ticket.
We'll talk more about that a little bit later.
Tip number five,
be flexible in your travels with your destinations
and your dates.
If you want to go to New York City for New Year's Eve,
just like everybody else or for Christmas,
you want to go to that ski destination,
guess what, those are going to be expensive.
But if you're flexible on your days,
if you're willing to fly on Christmas day
or you're willing to fly on New Year's day,
you can get significantly better prices.
The difference of one day
can make a difference of hundreds of dollars
in your airfare ticket.
So definitely play around with your beginning and end dates
to see if you find a little bit of a wiggle room
and price just by going one day to the left
or one day to the right,
one of the best ways to also find fares,
if you're flexible is to use the flexible dates feature
that many search engines have.
There's usually a box that says my dates are flexible.
I'm flexible, use flexible dates, check that box,
and then you're often presented with like a matrix of fares
where you can see,
'Hey, this day for the outbound
and this day for the return end up being the cheapest.'
Tip number six, use multiple airfare search engines,
when you're pricing out your flights.
I particularly like Kayak.
I'm also really enjoying Google flights.
Google flights has a really cool explore feature
where if you're flexible on your destination,
like you don't know where you want to go,
you can use this,
you can set your home airport
and then it'll tell you
what it costs to go to a variety of other destination.
So you can find the cheap destination
that maybe you never considered,
but you'll go to because it's cheap.
Kind of a weird thing
about living on the west coast of the USA,
I often find it cheaper to fly to Japan or even Singapore
from Los Angeles than I do to New York City.
Just because there's so much extra capacity
to those Asian destinations out of Los Angeles,
that the flights are way cheaper to go three times as long
than they are to go to a neighboring city
in my same country.
Now, also remember when you're using these search engines
that not all airlines appear in the search engines,
for example, Southwest,
typically doesn't appear in a lot of search engines,
so you'll have to go price them out separately.
I'd also encourage you when you narrow in on your carrier
and a flight that looks cheap,
go to that airlines website
and see if you can book it there.
See if that price comes up,
because it might even come up a little bit cheaper
on the airlines website.
Never know, weird things and travel sometimes.
Sometimes it's the fares don't get aggregated
to all of the search engines
and take their prices that they give you
with a grain of salt,
because sometimes you'll see that $200 fare,
but then when you click in to actually book it,
it's not there anymore
because sometimes that data is a little old.
Tip number seven, plan in advance,
or last minute.
Chris, aren't those two different things.
They are two different things,
but let me talk through it.
About the best window to plan in advance
is about three months out.
That's when I start to look at prices.
I like to book within about two months out.
You know, that month of looking at flights
gives me an opportunity to know what prices look like,
to know whether I'm getting a good price.
But now in the note of last minute booking
in today's world of the pandemic,
the airlines are having a really hard time
predicting how many people are going to fly.
All of their models are just thrown out the window.
And so you can also find some really good deals
at the last minute
as the airlines basically put their seats on a fire sale
to be like there's planes half empty.
It's two days before departure, nobody's coming,
drop those prices way down
to see if we can capitalize on any weekend whim travelers.
If you're that flexible,
then just look a couple of days out and say,
"Hey, what trips can we take this weekend?'
I had a friend of mine who booked a trip from San Diego
to the Big Island, Hawaii on Alaska Airlines
for less than $200 round trip,
just as a weekend trip
because prices were so cheap.
Now the exception to three month or last minute rule
is if you're booking holiday travel,
you're booking things around Thanksgiving, Christmas,
July 4th,
you may want to consider booking those a year out.
Also if you're booking award travel,
you may want to book that a year out too,
because that's often when award availability opens up
and airlines often release their award seats,
something between 365 and 330 days before travel.
Pro tip, if you want to go to a destination in the world
that currently isn't open yet
consider speculatively booking flights anyway.
The trip we recently took to Vancouver,
when air Canada put those tickets on sale,
Canada was actually not yet open to international tourists.
We had speculatively booked that trip,
assuming that air Canada was offering this route
likely talking to the government in coordination
with when it was gonna open.
Because as soon as Canada announced they opened,
the prices of those tickets shot way up.
So if you want to go to Japan,
consider booking a flight right now
and hope that Japan opens.
If it doesn't make sure you booked it with an airline
that offers free change, easy refund, those sorts of things,
so then you can just kick the can down the road.
Do not speculatively book non changeable,
non cancelable tickets
and then come back to me and say,
"But Chris, you said to book it
when the country's not open".
I said to book a changeable
and easily refundable ticket, speculatively.
That's actually helped us save a lot of money this year.
Tip number eight, know how to spot a good price.
Airline fares fluctuate wildly.
They go up, they go down in an hours notice,
seemingly with no reason.
That's why it's important,
when you decide to go some place
to start searching every day for the prices
and just taking a look at what they look like.
So, you know, what are good and what are bad prices?
Kayak can help you with that,
kayak.com.
They have a little price estimate guess
where they tell you, we think this is a good price,
or we think fares will go up.
We think the average price is this,
that's semi useful.
Kayak also does have a really neat fare watch feature
where you can have kayak notify you,
if prices drop on a route that you're looking at.
When I'm starting my planning to a destination,
I always sign up for the kayak fare watch on that route.
Tip number nine, pay attention to the fare rules.
Airline tickets have some bizarre rules sometimes
about how you can book them and how you can use them.
Sometimes you have to book seven days in advance,
14 days in advance, 21 days in advance.
Sometimes you have to stay over Saturday nights.
Sometimes you need to travel on a certain day.
Whatever you've done to find that cheap ticket,
if you move it a day, you move it a month,
you might not find those cheap tickets again.
So, if you're on the airline website
or sometimes on the search engines,
you can click on fair rules
and you can read through it
to figure out what all that gobbledygook is.
But if the price looks really, really good,
you might want to dive into those details
and see what makes it so good.
If you're trying to replicate it for different days
or different destinations.
Now, my pro tip here is to avoid basic economy tickets.
This is something many of the major carriers have rolled out
and they say it to save you money,
it's to make more money for themselves
where they've unbundled everything from the ticket,
seats cost you money,
checking in at the counter costs you money.
Basic economy generally costs more people more money
or gives them more headaches than it's really worth.
So spend that extra $30 and book a regular economy ticket,
not the basic economy one.
Tip number 10, lookout for airline fare sales.
When the airlines have their fare sales?
You know what, each one's different
but Black Friday typically fare sales,
summer holiday, typically fare sales,
winter travel, typically fare sales.
How do you find these things out?
You visit the airline's website.
That's a great way to do it.
You can also sign up for your favorite airlines email list
and they'll email you when there's fare sales.
If there's one site that you're looking at
to see that has the best information aggregate together,
I really like theflightdeal.com.
They organize it by the airport that you're leaving from.
So you don't get like all the deals in the world,
but if you say, "Hey, I'm leaving from LAX",
then you can go to that page and see all the good fares
from your destination.
Now, point out if you're looking for good airline prices,
be careful if you're booking mistake fares,
because prices that the airlines put in by a mistake
that are too good to be true,
do often end up getting canceled,
and then you don't get that fare honored.
Sometimes they are honored,
and in that case, you really get lucky.
So whether you want to book a mistake fare,
that's just what your tolerance for risk is.
Tip number 11, use a cash back site like TopCashback.
TopCashback is sponsoring this video,
but I use them all the time to save money on air travel,
on rental cars, on hotels.
But in this video, we're talking about air travel.
And so on TopCashback,
you can save money on tons of different airlines,
Hawaiian Airlines, Qatar Airlines, British Airways.
The way it works is
once you sign up for a TopCashback account,
you can browse through their site
and you can see the airlines or other vendors
that are offering cash back.
You just click into their website
and it'll bring you to the airline
just as if you were booking it with them,
your visit gets recorded.
So here going into Hawaiian Airlines,
we book it just like
we would any other Hawaiian Airlines flight,
but now we'll be getting one and a half percent cash back.
A pretty good way to get some extra money back
on those cheap tickets that you're finding
with all the other tips.
If you want to sign up for TopCashback,
right now, I've got a link in the description.
If you hit that link, you will get $10 extra cash back
on your first $25 purchase.
Pretty good deal.
Tip number 12, look for tickets as one person.
What do I mean by that?
Well, anytime you search for airfare,
it asks you how many people are traveling.
And sometimes one person can be cheaper than two
or three or four.
Why?
Because airlines have these things called fare buckets,
and sometimes they load the cheap fares
into these fare buckets
and there might only be one cheap fare available.
And if you're booking two or three,
then you don't find the cheap fare
because there's only one fare in that fare bucket.
But if you book that one ticket,
sometimes they'll replenish another ticket
into that cheap fare bucket.
And you can book that one and sometimes you get another one.
So consider looking at one
and see if you find that cheaper.
If you find out you booked one
and then the second one's more expensive.
Well, most airlines offer like a free refund,
free cancellation, no questions asked in the first 24 hours
you should just make sure you're doing that
in the first 24 hours,
if you found out the second ticket got way too expensive.
Tip number 13, use one-way fares
on potentially multiple airlines to complete a round trip.
For example, you can fly San Diego to New York City
on Jet Blue,
and then coming back, you can fly on American Airlines.
Those would be priced out as two different tickets,
but it might turn out that those two,
one way tickets on two different carriers
is cheaper than a round trip
on any one carrier individually.
Now, just a note for safety is if you might be changing it,
don't book it this way
because more tickets and more carriers
ends up with more change fees or more cancellation fees
if you do have to change or cancel your travel,
because you be paying those change fees to both carriers.
Tip number 14, fly a budget carrier.
Consider a carrier like Southwest, Frontier, Spirit,
Ryanair, easyJet.
Of these, I like Southwest the best
because they are budget carrier
does not have a lot of hidden fees.
Actually, they don't have any hidden fees.
There's no change fees on Southwest.
There's no baggage check fees.
I really like Southwest Airlines,
if I'm booking a short leisure route,
particularly if I'm flying into Las Vegas.
If you're booking on some of those other carriers
that love their fees, be really careful.
Do your homework.
See what fees you'll incur on top of your ticket price.
Because many of these carriers,
the Ryanair's the easyJets of the world,
They are proud of the fact that they often charge passengers
more in fees than in the original ticket price.
So beware.
Tip number 15,
book from a different city or pay in a foreign currency.
This one's a bit more advanced,
but on many airline websites,
you kind of set like where you're leaving from.
And if you change your region
and you're booking from a different country,
maybe you're booking a Japan Airlines ticket from Japan
and paying in Japanese Yen,
the price might actually be cheaper.
Not might, we have actually saved quite a bit of money
using this technique, booking on Japanese Airlines,
even though we're flying from Los Angeles,
they market these things on their Japanese websites,
to their Japanese customers that end up with cheaper fares
than what they market to their American customers.
So consider booking from a different country,
location and currency.
Tip number 16, use a travel agent or a consolidator.
This is another tip, particularly if you're flying to Asia
because many Asian carriers
like Singapore Airlines, for example,
or China Airlines offer fares
that they don't advertise
that aren't on their website,
that aren't on any search engine.
That the only way you can book them is with a travel agent
that you call on the phone.
And often these fares,
they'll have to wait list you for them.
And then you wait a little while
and then find out whether you get them.
But we've been able to score some of our best deals to Asia
using a travel agent that specializes in Asian travel.
Tip number 17, book a connecting flight.
Chris, are you telling me more flights
and more flight time will be cheaper than a direct flight.
Yeah, you know why,
people like direct flights better.
Connecting flights, they like them less
because they take longer
and they're more of a hassle.
So direct flights will cost you more.
Connecting flights will typically cost you less.
If time is not important to you
or the risk of a connection,
then book the connecting flight
and save yourself some money.
Tip 18, buy gift cards at a discount.
You can often find airline gift cards at a discount
in particular from Costco.
I was just at Costco this morning
before shooting this video
and they have Alaska Airlines, gift cards,
face value, $500 on sale for $450.
Costco has previously had American Airlines,
$300 gift cards on sale for 270.
Basically they're about 10% off,
if you find airline gift cards at Costco.
Tip number 19, book award tickets,
if you're a frequent traveler,
if you earn miles on your credit cards,
a great way for the cheapest flights
is to use award miles.
Now, I'm not going to get into this in detail in this video
because I have a whole hour video about
tips for booking award tickets
and tips for earning miles.
You can find links to those
in the description of this video.
Tip number 20, I want to share some things with you
that don't matter for finding cheap flights,
day of the week.
Doesn't matter what day of the week
you're booking your flights.
There is no like common time or day
that airlines give the best prices.
You may have heard Tuesday.
You may have heard Saturday.
You may have heard midnight, doesn't matter.
Prices are all over the map and then go up and down
all the time.
There's not one good time or day to book your flights.
Standing on one foot doesn't help
burning incense doesn't help
and human sacrifice
that's definitely not gonna help either.
Well, if you are planning to book some airfare for cheap,
definitely sign up for TopCashback.
You'll find the link in the description below
to get you some extra cash back on your purchase.
And up here on the screen,
you can find links to my "How to get good deals on hotels"
and "How to get good deals on rental cars".
As usual, I won't say goodbye
because I'll see you in one of these videos.