Travel Takeoffs: How to Book Cheap Flights

By Claire Weston

Edited by Taylor Morgan

CLAIRE WESTON / UP Blog Writer

When planning a trip, the flight is often the highest cost. Finding the cheapest and best way to book tickets can be a saving grace for your wallet and your budget. 

We will explore the best ways to save on airline tickets.

Tip One: Log onto your browser in Incognito mode

Your computer keeps track of your search history and builds an algorithm around it. Sometimes, the airline's website tracks its online traffic and individual flight views and raises ticket prices because of popularity. Leaving the browser in incognito mode limits the airline’s ability to do this and will give you cheaper ticket options. 

Tip Two: Book flights on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Sundays

In my experience, these days tend to show the cheapest tickets compared to the rest of the days in the week. 

Tip Three: Book domestic flights one to three months in advance

This appears to be the time frame where flights are the lowest cost. 

Tip Four: Use Google Flights

Once on the website, input your departing airport and your desired destination. You will then pick the dates of your trip. Google will produce all airline flights available on the days you wish to travel.

You can then sort the flights based on cost, layover amount, airline, baggage type and so on. 

If you have flexibility with your traveling dates, play around with the days. Typically, flying in and also departing on a weekday is the cheapest option. 

KIT / Unsplash

Tip Four and a Half: Use SkyScanner 

Similar to Google Flights, Skyscanner will search each airline to find you the cheapest tickets. The best method is first to search Google and then cross-check with Skyscanner to see if the flight is the cheapest option.

On the website, you can sort through the flights and determine which accommodations you care about most. The most important thing to remember is that Skyscanner will show you any flight it deems flyable. 

Meaning, sometimes it will spit out a flight pattern that may be very difficult to catch in reality. (For example, once it showed a flight that would require me to self-transfer my layover to another airport two hours away from the first airport.) 

Tip Five: Use flight tracking 

If you use Google Flights to search for flights, you can turn on flight price tracking. You will then receive notifications via email about the ticket cost patterns. It will update you when prices increase and decrease. 

Hopefully, these tips will help you book the most affordable flights next time you want to travel!