Real Travel Tips: Cheap International Flights

I was running out of time to buy my flight to Asia. It didn’t appear that flights would get any cheaper and I wanted to leave in around 2 weeks. On the night I was going to give up and buy the flight, my buddy sent me a message of various crazy deals to Asia from the USA. I ended up buying my one way flight from Minneapolis to Hong Kong for 17,000 Delta sky miles, or roughly the equivalent of $170, and saving 100’s of dollars. It is good to have friends who are deal hustlers and who know how to save money on flights!

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Depending on how you travel, flights are usually a major expense of your travel budget. And usually the further you go, the more expensive it can be. This does not have to be the case! I’ll walk you through some ways to save money so you can go farther for longer!

Note: The names of the apps or websites are hyperlinked so if you click on them it will bring you to their website!

Discount Flight Email Lists

Honestly, subscribing to one of these groups to receive emails is a perfect way to be informed of possible flight deals out there. These sites will send daily or weekly emails containing a list of various flight deals including the to and from cities and the associated prices. This service is usually free but there is also often a paid service you can subscribe to for more deals offered beyond the free ones.

This one works very well if you are looking for flights in advance, have flexible travel dates, or are even flexible on where you want to go! These work for both international and domestic flights. I believe the ones mentioned below are mostly tailored to people living in the USA, but if you are in another country you can look at what is offered for you/there may be other sites similar to these that are better tailored to your country.

• All the Flight Deals – I got my crazy flight deal on either this one or Thrifty Traveler. I always see great deals on this one so I would highly recommend subscribing!
• Thrifty Traveler – My travel flight hustler buddy recommends this one and All the Flight Deals so I would recommend getting both!
• Scott’s Cheap Flights – I have had this one for years but haven’t bought a flight with it. I probably don’t check it enough (emails go into spam folder…). A lot of people recommend this one though!

Flight Apps

These are my go to’s while traveling and usually use the discount flight email lists for the initial big flight to the area of the world I am going to. Flight apps work well to scan the flights of numerous airlines and flight providers to show you the best deals. I will often check prices on these apps first and then go to the major airlines’ websites to see what price they are offering. Usually you find better deals through the app but if it is the same price on the airline website I will buy it through the airline because it can be easier to work with the airline if something goes wrong with the flight (lost bag, delayed flight, etc.).

• Skyscanner – I use this app most often. You can also go on their website to look for deals if you prefer looking on your computer.
• Momondo – Basically the same as Skyscanner but will sometimes have slightly different deals. I always check both.
• Google Flights – I don’t use this one as much outside of the U.S. but Google does offer a good selection of flights. I would use Skyscanner or Momondo first.

The thing to watch out for on these apps is you also get offered flights from 3rd parties who buy flights from the airlines. This often gives you a better deal but then you have to make sure the 3rd party is credible. If I see a good deal offered by an organization I am not familiar with, I will just Google the organization reviews to see what people say about them. You should be wary of organizations that have a score of a 1 or 2 out of 5 stars or that have little to no reviews. I have never had a problem with 3rd parties but it is good to do your due diligence!

Check Major Cities

It is always good to check major airport hubs around where you are going to see if there are cheaper flights to those places. In a lot of areas around the world, there is usually pretty cheap flights from city to city if you buy in advance. Examples of these would be Spirit of the USA, RyanAir of Europe, and AirAsia of Asia. This depends on where you go but it is often easy to find cheap flights once you are in the area of where you want to go.

A way to check this is to check the price of flying from your city to some of the major airport hubs. Now you can check the price of that hub to your destination using one of the flight apps above like Skyscanner or Momondo. Are you saving money? And if you are you may want to consider having a detour. This can also be a good reason to visit more than one place if you space out your flights. You can get 2 places for less than the price of 1!

My dad and aunt did this when they visited me in Vietnam. It was cheaper to fly to Shanghai and then fly to Saigon than it would have been to fly directly to Saigon. This also gave them a couple days on the way over to hang out with my Great Uncle in Shanghai and a couple days on the way home. You can’t beat that!

Timing

Now this one is hard. It really depends on the area of the world you are in and how the airlines deal with filling flights. For places like Europe and lots of Asia, it is usually best to buy tickets in advance because the ticket prices will rise closer to the flight date. But you always have the chance of the ticket prices dropping because the airline wants to fill up the flight. In those places it is probably better to buy in advance (at least I haven’t had much luck and will usually lose money on trying to wait it out).

I usually say a good rule of thumb is to buy tickets out a month in advance. That is what I usually try to do but it can be hard if your plans are flexible. Some people like to buy them many months in advance but I would only recommend this if you find some crazy discount. That is just my style though and everybody has their own.

I hope this helped! The more you fly and look at flights, the more you start to learn how cheap you can get flights and what is a reasonable amount to spend. Don’t overspend on flights when you don’t have to!