Flight tickets can be a pain for frequent travellers who love to travel and explore out of their boundaries. And seriously how many times have you face-palmed yourself while searching for cheap flight tickets. Well, we understand it can quite be a task for some people to find cheap flight tickets. But how about we say that you can book flight tickets at affordable rates! honouring your tight budget.
No, it’s not that tough, you just need to be a little smart and grab the best deal for you at cheaper prices. If you are a travel enthusiast, this article is for you. We have covered ways to give your pocket relief on part of flight tickets. Because we know how flight tickets can form an enormous chunk of your travel expenses. And the importance & benefits of saving money.
Check out the 25 Best ways to find cheap flight tickets and save on flight tickets a big time for your next trip.
1. Search in incognito mode to find cheap flight tickets
You must have experienced that when you start your research for booking a flight ticket, you come across some of the cheapest fares. But after continuing research you might notice the increased fares for the same destination. Resultantly, you book the flight tickets paying the extra money in panic thinking that prices might increase further later and you might miss the best deal.
This happens because of cookies in your browser which tracks and stores your search data. Which is used by airlines to make use of your demand for tickets and suddenly increase prices. This phenomenon is known as dynamic pricing where airlines fluctuate prices of flight tickets as per supply and demand.
What you can do to avoid it is use incognito mode while you search for flight tickets online. Or clear your cookies before every fresh web search.
2. Book with flight points to save on flight tickets
If you are a frequent flyer of a particular airline, you earn flight points as per your traveling miles or money spent on tickets as part of their Frequent flyer program (FFP). You can earn these points and later redeem them for booking your next flight tickets with that airline.
For ex.- Vistara Airlines uses Club Vistara as part of its Frequent flyer program and award points to its members based on money spent on Air tickets by them.
3. Use wallet cash to earn extra cashback on your bookings
Many websites allow their users to use a feature of wallet cash where you pay using your wallets with these websites and earn cashback or rewards to redeem on your next booking. Like goibibo uses, goCash and Yatra has eCash where you can book flights with your virtual wallet and earn amazing cashback.
4. Book flights at least 45 days in advance to get the cheapest flight tickets
A study revealed that the fare prices of airlines were very high during 2-3 weeks before flight and lowest around 45-60 days before flight. We understand that the best vacations happen unplanned, but you do what you gotta do to save that extra money for future trips. Booking flights 45-50 days in advance can give you a fair and cheaper deal to save on flight tickets.
5. Use comparing sites to find cheap flight tickets online
The comparing theory works everywhere in the universe, be it while selecting the best grocery or choosing a good laptop. And why not? One must make a rational choice after exploring all the alternatives available. Same goes with searching for flight tickets. Compare tickets to your destination with different airlines by websites like Yatra, Google flights, FareCompare, goibibo, etc. and book tickets with the cheapest fares.
6. Make use of your Credit Cards to save on flight tickets
Booking flight tickets with your credit and debit card can land you with extra benefits. You can earn credit scores and bonus points for booking tickets with a credit card. And you can use your credit score to find cheap flight tickets to your destination. Not only this but, some companies even have a policy of full refund in case of cancellation of tickets previously booked with credit cards.
7. Avail coupons for deals while booking tickets to save on flight
There are numerous sites offering coupons and vouchers with amazing offers. You can avail these coupons to get discounts and find some of the cheapest fares to your destination. All you need to do is just to dig in deep enough and find the best suitable offer for you. You may find coupons with almost 50% off on your bookings to one-way or both ways flight tickets.
8. Avail special categories discounts to save on flight tickets
Airlines offer some discounts for people belonging to special categories like students, senior citizens, personnel of armed forces, etc. But you need to book tickets from the airline’s website only to avail of these discounts and present certain documents as required. If you are a student or senior citizen, you may get a student discount of up to 8-10% as per the airline’s policy. You can find this information on their website.
For ex.- Indigo airlines offer a senior citizen/student discount of 6% and up to 50% for personnel of the defence category. But you need to read the terms and conditions carefully.
9. Fly on weekdays to save money
Always try to fly on weekdays and avoid flying on weekends because the passenger crowd is at its most during weekends. Resulting in increased ticket prices to your destination. What you can do is fly between Monday and Wednesday to avoid paying premium.
10. Travel with budget airlines to find cheap flight tickets
There are various low-cost carriers like SpiceJet, GoAir, Indigo, Air Asia etc. you can travel with to book cheap flights online. These airlines operate domestically as well as internationally.
One of the famous budget airlines in India is Indigo with an enormous customer base. There are always cons to everything, you might not get the best services but you’ll save a lot of money eventually.
l1. Use intermediary apps to make payment
Sometimes intermediary payment sites like Paytm, Google Pay, PhonePe, MobiKwik, FreeCharge, etc. can get you additional discounts on your bookings online. You can get offers & discounts for booking tickets and making payments through these websites. Make sure to check these websites for ongoing offers before booking tickets to find cheap flight tickets.
12. Look for featured offers to save on tickets
Traveling sites tie up payment sites for promotional purposes. And offer a discount to customers for booking flights through their website and payment through the featured payment site or certain debit/credit card. These offers can go up to as high as 50% off on your bookings.
For ex- Easemytrip offered a 20% discount on booking flights through their website for payment through paytm money only. But again read all the terms and conditions carefully.
13. Subscribe to airfare alerts for best offers
Airlines and various travel sites issue constant price alerts in their airfare newsletter. You can subscribe to these newsletters through emails and you will be receiving alerts for prices. This way you can be updated with the latest prices and book tickets on the cheapest day according to you.
14. Avoid traveling during vacation season
As far as possible, avoid traveling during the holidays and tourist season. Because of the heavy tourist crowd and families going on vacations, demand for flights increases and so does the prices of tickets. Tickets for goa during June-July would be much higher than in September-October. Hence, try to fly during off-seasons to find cheap flight tickets and save money on your travel.
15. Use apps to book flight tickets to save money
Sometimes, booking flights through apps of airlines or intermediary websites gives certain benefits. You might get discount codes worth at least 6-12% which are available only if you book flights with their mobile app. If you do not want to miss on such opportunities to book cheap tickets online, use mobile app for flight tickets.
16. Book tickets with different websites to find cheap flight tickets
You might not be utilizing the full benefit of discount coupons or codes while booking flight tickets. How? Here is an example of how.
Suppose there is a website that is offering a discount of 8% up to 500 rupees for booking a single or two-way flight. And you book your two-way flight worth 10,000 with 5000 each way. Ideally, you should get a discount of 800 rupees, but you only get a discount of 600 rupees. To avoid this, book tickets with different websites and avail discount on both bookings.
17. Take flights during off-hours to save on flight tickets
If you are not bound to reach your destination at a certain time, take flights during off-hours. Usually, when everyone likes to sleep or does not want to travel. Probably from 1 am to early mornings. Book your flights for these hours as demand for flights at odd hours is lesser therefore the prices for these flights tend to get cheaper.
18. Skip add-ons to your flight ticket
You can make your flight at least 10% cheaper by skipping the special services. Airlines will try to make money from you by charging extra money for services like meals, baggage, premium seat, etc. Avoid these premium services and stick to basic ones for short flights of 4 to 5 hrs.
Above is an example of how the fare changed from 6975 rupees to 7694 rupees for some basic services. You could have saved almost 1000 bucks if you had chosen the basic spice saver pack instead of spice max.
19. Search for flights on weekdays to find cheap flight tickets
Start your research for flights on weekdays instead of weekends. We know you have the most time to spend on weekends, but so does everyone else. Everyone is going to search for flight tickets on weekends. And airlines will try to benefit from it resulting in increased fares due to heavy traffic of researchers and increased demand for flight tickets. Hence, take a little time off your weekdays’ schedule and book flights on weekdays to get cheaper flights online.
20. Set price decline alerts on websites to find cheap flight tickets
You can set price decline alerts on websites like Google flights where they keep informing you about the price declines in fares of tickets. You can choose the best suitable price for you and book tickets on that day. But only if you are not in a hurry, you can do this 3 to 4 months before your actual date of departure.
21. Let the airline choose seat for you to save on flight tickets
Do not be picky with your seat in the aircraft. Airlines try to charge extra on everything which they can and letting passengers choose their seats and then charge for it one of them. Therefore, let the airlines choose seat for you and try to adjust a little with whatever seat is assigned to you. As a rational customer, use your conscience and make the best choice and do not get fooled by airlines.
22. Book tickets on the airline’s website
If you are not getting many discounts or offers anywhere else, booking tickets from the airline’s website would be best. As you may get cheaper tickets on the website of the airline than any intermediary travel service provider. Sometimes airlines offer heavy discounts as part of their promotional programs to travellers. Make sure to check the airline’s website to grab on such deals and offers.
23. Pre-book your meals for longer flights
Our priority should be to avoid meals during flights, which is reasonable for shorter flights. But the same can not be applied to longer flights. No need to starve yourself to save a few bucks, you need refreshments if you are going to fly for 5 hours or more. What you can do is book your meals in advance while booking flight tickets if you are going to fly for long hours to avoid paying extra during the flight.
You can save up to 200 bucks if you pre-book your meals with flight tickets.
24. Be flexible with travel dates to find cheap flight tickets
If you want to save money on flight tickets, you have to be flexible with your travel if you do not have to reach somewhere urgently. Check out tickets for a day or two here and there from when you had decided to depart. Chances are, you may find cheap flight tickets to your destination if you are not very rigid with traveling on a specific date.
Above is a screenshot of a flight from yatra.com. You can see that the flight ticket on 27 July is cheaper than 25 July by almost 1700 bucks. Anyone willing to fly on 25 July or around dates can easily consider flying on 27 July instead and save big time on flight tickets.
25. Make payment in cheaper currencies
If possible, try to make payment in cheaper currencies than rupee. Credit cards play a significant role in this. Some credit card companies may offer the facility to make payments in other currencies than the Indian rupee. But be cautious while doing it, do not forget to consider transaction cost for paying in other currencies. As you may end up paying extra as hidden transaction costs, which we certainly want to avoid.
Conclusion
In conclusion, try out what suits best for you of aforementioned tips to save on flight tickets. But do not wait longer if you find a good deal. You might not want to gamble and lose on cheap found flight ticket available at the moment. You must remember the old saying, ‘Over-analysis leads to Paralysis‘.
And one bonus point for you, as said by Benjamin Franklin~ “Time is money“. So, do not overspend your precious time but only a desirable amount into searching for flight tickets. And honestly, it is not going to be as tough as before if you follow the tips mentioned above.
