One question I get asked the most is how do I find such great flight deals? First, it’s important to understand that there are a lot of great resources at our fingertips, but many of these resources provide very similar functions. The ones that stand out – the ones with that “it” factor if you will – are the ones that change how we travel. Below are several of my favorite websites that I personally use to find a great travel deal. Each site below comes with a description of why I love it and how it can help you.
The Flight Deal has 12 focus cities – New York City, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Miami, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Portland OR, Seattle, Washington DC. If you live in or near one of these 12 cities, I highly recommend going to their website and signing up for their daily newsletter, liking them on facebook, and following them on twitter. You won’t regret it. People ask me how we are able to fly to so many places. This is the main reason. The wonderful people at The Flight Deal will post the deal of the day – sometimes multiple deals – from these cities and there are often outrageous flight deals. You can’t book the actual flight on their website, but they tell you how. And the only real catch to these deals is that you need to act fast because the deals often sell out within a day or two.
Fare Deal Alert is a sister site to The Flight Deal. It has different focus cities – Atlanta, Charlotte, Denver, Detroit, Houston, Kansas City, Las Vegas, Minneapolis, Orlando, San Diego. The same principles apply to this site. Follow this site if you live in or near one of their focus cities.
3) ITA Matrix
Discovering the ITA Matrix has been a travel-altering revelation. It runs on Google technology but it is separate from Google Flights. The ITA Matrix is hands down the best search tool I’ve used for finding the cheapest flights. When The Flight Deal tells you how to find their low fares, they tell you how to find it using the ITA Matrix. As far as basic search capabilities the ITA Matrix has everything you need, but I really love the advanced routing codes you can enter to really narrow your focus. For example, you can specify (or exclude) exact airlines, number of layovers, layover cities, flight numbers, and even whole alliances such as Oneworld, SkyTeam, and Star Alliance. It takes a little bit to learn how to do this, but there are resources on the ITA Matrix website that explain what some of the various codes mean and how to apply them to a search.
4) Skyscanner
Skyscanner is excellent when searching for flights and airlines outside of the US. Skyscanner has a wide range of international airlines that you’ve never even heard of, particularly low-cost airlines, making those harder to reach destinations more attainable. When looking for flights within a particular country or region (e.g. South America, Southeast Asia, etc.), make sure to check Skyscanner.
5) Momondo
I’m a big fan of Momondo’s layout. After inputting your flight details, Momondo provides results that are easily sortable by Cheapest, Quickest, and Best. The “Best” will usually be some combination of the cheapest and quickest flights…and to add that little touch to it, Momondo even provides a rating from 1-10 of how good that particular result is and a smiley face that’s happiest at 10 and saddest at 1. Another thing I appreciate about Momondo is that it only takes 1 click to filter results by alliance, so if you are loyal to a particular alliance or are just looking to collect miles within a specific alliance, it’s super easy to filter for that.
6) Hopper
Hopper is best used as an app on your phone, as it only has a small internet footprint. However, I would suggest going to their website first to learn what it’s all about. Hopper is an incredibly helpful tool if you either need to make a split-second decision on a flight or if you just want to monitor flight prices between city pairs. For split-second decisions, Hopper’s algorithm will determine whether prices are expected to climb or drop, and it will recommend either buying now or waiting for a specified amount of time. For flight monitoring, if you have a specific destination in mind but not specific dates, Hopper will provide you a long-range color coded calendar where green represents the best dates to book. You can also set up an alert so that Hopper will notify you if and when prices drop between specific cities. Their tagline of “When to Fly and Buy,” therefore, is right on point.
Runners up: Google Flights, Kayak, Airfarewatchdog, Yapta.
This is by no means an all-encompassing list and will most certainly change over time, but hopefully this list has introduced some new approaches for finding flight deals and gave you a better understanding of what each site offers.
Did I miss any of your favorites? If so, let me know in the comments section and tell everyone why you like it!
Leave a Reply