Finding affordable flights can be extremely challenging. Flight prices are continuously on the rise, and often a different day or time can change the price by hundreds to thousands of dollars. So what’s the best way to find affordable flights? How do you know if you’re getting a good deal?

1. Research flight prices early

Even before you’ve confirmed your holiday destination have a look at flight prices to different locations. This can help you make your decision where to go. By checking out prices early for different times of the year, you can get a good idea of what the average price is. This means that if a sale comes up, you can see if it’s actually a great deal.

2. Be as flexible as possible

I know this is on everyone’s ‘Save Money on Flights List’ but it really is a key point. If you are dead-set on flying on a particular date with no wiggle room at all, you’re chances of a cheap flight are low. If on the other hand you can look at a whole week, you may very well find yourself a deal. Even better, if you’re really open to making your travel fit the best price you can get, look at the whole month. Often there will be a couple of days over the month where you can save hundreds on the flight price.

3. Use flight comparison sights

There are heaps of flight sites out there that will look at all airlines and find you the lowest price. My personal favourite is skyscanner.com. I use it every time I need to book a flight. As well as finding the lowest current fare, Sky Scanner will also offer to keep you updated with email price alerts for specific destinations. Another good tool is Google Flights. After entering your dates you can click on the calendar and see the flight prices for the entire month. However Google flights does just scan the internet for the best price, and I’ve found a couple of times that the flight price they show is not actually available when trying to book.

4. Book a return flight, even if you’re only going one way

This is a tricky rule that is frowned upon and you shouldn’t do it too often, but it can save you a fortune. I found whilst traveling through South America that flights were extremely expensive. Whilst it is a continent that’s best traveled by bus, sometimes a bus wasn’t suitable for where I wanted to go in the time frame I had. So when  looked at flights, most of the time I found that a return flight was the same price if not cheaper than one way. I have no idea why this is the case, but it is and it’s ridiculous. So I ended up doing what many others have done in the past and booked the return flight, even though I was only going to fly one way. After I had flown to my destination, I cancelled the return flight and let the airline know that my plans had changed. I didn’t get any money refunded, but it didn’t matter because booking the return flight was cheaper than the one way anyway.
But be warned, this isn’t a trick you should use all the time. If an airline becomes aware that you are ‘throw-away ticketing’ they can blacklist you from flying with them and also make you pay the higher cost of the one way flight. So do it at your own risk, but if it’s done sporadically you shouldn’t have too many problems.