— Flights, Travel Hacks —

Travel Hacks: Booking your flights

July 15, 2016
flight hacks

Last Updated on March 25, 2018 by Bryony Clapperton

There isn’t a particular set of rules to follow when you’re booking a flight. We all go about things in different ways but I get so many messages from curious friends asking me about flights, websites, hacks and booking techniques. So I’m going to share the way I do things on and it’s usually as cheap as possible which is always a bonus for the budget savvy backpacker in us all. Travel hacking is easy once you know how, here’s booking your flights.

 

TRAVEL HACKS – BOOKING YOUR FLIGHTS

First of all there’s a couple principal things that I think are super important when looking for bargain flights and flight hacking. The most crucial thing that I tell anyone about booking flights is always try and be as flexible as humanly possible with your dates, times and airports.

I know this isn’t always possible and bargain flights do come along as late and last minute deals, but if you can book in advance, flexibility is the sky to bagging a bargain flight and the golden travel hack rule for booking your flights. Have a destination in mind but be willing to be inspired. If you are dead set on a particular destination that’s cool too, just be more adjustable with dates and airports. Don’t set your heart on a city, be open minded.

SKYSCANNER TRAVEL HACKS

Skyscanner is very much the holy grail of travel comparison and its a word people use frequently among travel communities when talking about future travel plans. Have you checked Skyscanner recently?

Using Skyscanner and being comfortable with its features is lifeline in the world of travel and flight hunting. This is why, for me, Skyscanner is such a useful little hack and tool when it comes to booking your flights. Being able to compare flights by time, date, tour operator and airport makes finding the best deal easy.

I love putting flight reminder alerts on, Skyscanner even let you know if the flights prices goes up or down subscribe to emails to watch and follow those all important flights, a travel hack for not missing a trick. Alerts and notifications are a key feature to Skyscanner the mobile app. I get regular emails to let me know the flights I’m watching have gone up or down. I’m mostly hoping and waiting for them to decline in price.

When it comes to booking a flight or planning a trip Skyscanner is every frequent fliers ultimate travel hack. Its comparison properties and filterable settings are what makes it so user friendly. If you don’t have to have a particular destination in mind you can choose to be inspired and browse flights based on their pricing and location all from the click of the search button. Try looking at the ‘cheapest month’ if you don’t know when you want to go somewhere but know where you’d like to go.

You can view flights almost an entire year into the future. My top hack for booking your flights is know the Skyscanner website well enough that you can filter your settings so perfectly that you’re almost guaranteed to find the best and most competitively priced flight out there.

TRAVEL HACKS MADE EASY – BOOKING YOUR FLIGHTS WITH SKYSCANNER

1. Change the settings to From: UK (or your destination) – To: Everywhere. Make sure you set your country of origin or location, the less specific you are the more options you’ll be given.
2. Change the dates to (for example) ‘whole month’ November – November and switch to calendar view to browse the prices. Like before, the more flexible you are the more (and cheaper) options you’ll see.
3. There is also a ‘Cheapest month’ option when you select your dates if you have none in mind. Perfect for those seeking travel inspiration.
You can follow these three simple travel hacks for return or one way flights and on Skyscanner flights always list cheapest first, as if by magic and for your convenience completely.
Skyscanner only searches and compares flights for you, you’ll be taken into a different page to book which will open in a pop-up so make sure you have them enabled! Click here for Skyscanner. Some sites may look spammy but always look out for the ABTA, ATOL and IATA symbols to be sure. The majority of cheap flight operators are much smaller than your big flag carries and often aren’t as established.
Finally, always remember to delete your cookies when repeatedly looking at the same travel sites. You don’t know what tricks they have up their sleeve. This applies to multiple service providers – browsing incognito is definitely not a bad idea. Although this is just a conspiracy its best to watch your back.

This flight hacks post uses affiliate links.

 

14 thoughts on “Travel Hacks: Booking your flights”

  3. Skyscanner is my favorite search site! I usually don't have a destination in mind and just use the everywhere feature like you mentioned. That's how I scored tickets to Thailand for less than $500 from LAX last month. Everyone needs to use Skyscanner!

  4. I love Skyscanner and always consult that site when looking to book a flight! I'll check momondo as well, which is pretty similar to Skyscanner. If you don't want to delete cookies, you can also open a window incognito and you'll have the same benefits as deleting your cookies (:

  8. I love a bargain flight and NEVER pay full price. Agree flexibility is the key on both dates and locations. I'm currently looking for a bargain flight from Sydney-Ho Chi Minh (direct) which is proving somewhat difficult but I will keep trying. I can get a discount flight through Air Asia but the 13 hour layover in KL makes for a 24 hour journey as opposed to 9 hours so for now I'll keep looking 😀

  11. Ah that's sometimes the hardest sacrifice to make. I hate losing time in a destination but long layovers usually mean cheaper flights. It's a tricky one definitely. Try China southern, I know they operate some really competitive rates in Asia.

  12. Yess I'm a big fan of Skyscanner and have been using the technique you suggested a lot! It has helped loaads in terms of finding cheap flights. I also love Secret Flying (which posts crazy deals on their site all the time).

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