How I find cheap flights {tips and tricks}

{This guide is probably most helpful for Germans, given that I just booked most of my flights from Germany and not UK}

I am obviously not a super expert at this, but I have done extensive research every time I fly and found some tips and tricks in this area, so I thought I could share.
There is no one single strategy to buying cheap tickets and the best strategy is probably doing your research and being flexible.  If you want cheap flights, there is probably a catch. Flying super early or lsuper late, 10 layovers, longer flights and maybe even bad service. From time to time, there are going to be super good offers with almost no catch, but this is not going to be the usual thing.

I think in order to start your search for the cheapest flights you have to use the best search engine. One that lets you do exactly what you want to. Some of them do not let you be flexible in terms of dates, some do not want to show you the cheapest dates, some don't let you consider nearby airports etc etc. A really good starting point is Skyscanner. The search engine allows you to look at the whole month, comparing the prices for each day. It looks up flight combinations from different airlines, lets you know when you can save some money and so on. If you don't even know where you want to go, you can just put it 'everywhere' as a destination and you can see what places you can fly to for the least money.

click to enlarge

A website I recently discovered is veeery similar to Skyscanner but a tiny bit better, in my opinion. It's called Momondo. What I love about it is the feature that you can put in your priorities: save money, save time or the middle between those. There is so much more information on this site, you guy should just browse a bit. As you can see here, for popular routes you can look at a summary called "flight insight": It shows you on what day to fly, what month or what time is best and cheapest. Absolutely great feature! And if you don't know where to go, you can let momondo inspire you- tell them what kind of holiday you want and they show you destinations that are perfect for you. They also have travel guides for some destinations like New York, Paris, Prague... Go and check it out!

Now if you kind of figured out where to go and when to fly, you can start digging deeper and by that I just mean researching the shit out of it- I read this article a while ago and it is almost what I do, but my process is so much more unorganised, so I would really recommend reading it! He explains step by step what he is doing to book a cheap flight from New York to London. However, the author is American so some tips and websites might be unusable to non Americans.

What I do is quite similar, I basically check all the websites for cheap flights in the beginning, and when I found a certain flight that sounds good, I check the website of the actual airline and try to find ways to get this exact flight cheaper. They might have a sale or offer it for less. Sometimes the website with the lowest price does not have a great payment method, so I will try another website that might charge less fees and sometimes, the flight might be a bit more expensive but the total is less due to cheaper booking fees. Get my drift? I am kind of obsessed with finding the best price for stuff, and I get that some people don't have the patience to do that. However, I really do recommend checking out several websites and not just one. And here are just some general tips:

                                                                        So just now I will go into two areas that I know most about: Ryanair flights and flights to New York.

Because there is a lot more to come, please click here

I always keep an eye open for good offers on flights to New York. Sometimes there are certain airlines that have these crazy fares like 300€ for a round trip to NY  (Airberlin and Singapur Airlines for example), but these prices are mostly for flights in February or just low season. If you are flexible, this is perfect! Unfortunately I am not that flexible anymore with Uni and everything, so that is a bugger. A guy who takes advantage of these offers almost every year and takes amazing pictures of New York: Toko.

My New York flight in June (2011) was 435€, which was pretty good deal for summer. Especially in the summer months (end of June until first weekend in September) it is hard to find cheap flights to the States, which is annoyyying. If there is no other option than flying during those months, just try to book early. My flight now for end of August until mid September was still pretty expensive, which sucks a lot (and don't even get me started on hotels during Fashion week or official holidays. Urgh).

In a way, there is not much to say here. Every time I go home to Germany, I fly with RyanAir. I am happy that there is the direct connection between Edinburgh and Bremen but at the same time I wish I had other affordable options. Anyway. I found that booking RyanAir flights is better when you use their "offers". They always have some sort of offer on flights in the next one to two months and you should make use of that. If you book earlier than that, they might actually be more expensive. So wait until it says on the website "Fly for 10€ in June and July" for example. They always do that, but obviously some months have cheaper offers than others.
Flying to Edinburgh (from Bremen) in February is ridiculously cheap for example, like 24€ for a return ticket. Summer not so much.
Something else that is ridiculous, is paying 35€ for your luggage. I guess this does not help when you go on holiday, but sometimes sending a parcel is cheaper than that. Now you can't really cheat on your suitcase weight. You can go up to 20.4kg if you are allowed 20kg, but that is it. It is much easier to cheat on your hand luggage. A trick that is well known I guess and a bit obvious but still worth mentioning- if you fly from an airport where they weigh your hand luggage (Bremen for example), put everything heavy in your coat or your pants or wherever. Everytime I fly I am wearing two coats, have my laptop charger in my pocket and carry the bag with the liquids. They don't mind if they weigh your hand luggage without, so that is good. As soon as you are throug security you are fine and can put everything back in to your carry on. It is ridiculous and a pain, but working. And what I then like to do is buy cheap alcohol at the duty free shop, just because it costs twice (!!!) as much here in Edinburgh and I don't have to worry about the weight of my luggage. I love it, even though you get dodgy looks from people around you (especially because I always fly by myself, haha).
 

A website I absolutely love is Exbir.de This is a German website (you can translate it but I am not sure how good that translation is) and it is run by absolute travel experts. These guys have traveled so much and mostly on a budget. They always find the best travel deals or error fares and you can even ask them personally. I know there are other websites like this around, but I feel this is so much more personal. I have asked them stuff myself and they know sooo much! Absolute gem! Now there is so much more to know about frequent flier programs, credit cards etc etc. But this is getting too fancy and complicated. I will list a lot of good and useful sites now, so make sure to check them out. There are so many good travel blogs out there, from people who have travelled anywhere and everywhere and have so much more to share than I do. So go and have a look at those, if you really wanna get into the whole business of traveling cheap.


To finish up, just a couple of my favorite websites:

Great travel blog with helpful tips for cheap travels	http://www.nomadicmatt.com
Can tell you when to book your flights. US based though	http://www.farecompare.com/
Really good flight booking site etc. US based	http://www.kayak.com/
Flights, holidays, hotels etc. UK	http://www.travelpack.com
Good flight offers, germany. good payment methods!	http://www.lastminute.de
UK based site- cheap flights etc	http://www.netflights.com
US based, flights and stuff	http://www.cheaptickets.com
Cool way to find cheap flights when you dont know where to go	http://flightchecker.moneysavingexpert.com
They have great offers for US flights with layovers in Iceland (only in summer though)	I always keep an eye open for good offers on flights to New York. Sometimes there are certain airlines that have these crazy fares like 300€ for a round trip to NY.  (Airberlin and Singapur Airlines for example), but these prices are mostly for flights in February or just low season. If you are flexible, this is perfect! Unfortunately I am not that flexible anymore with Uni and everything, so that is a bugger. A guy who takes advantage of these offers almost every year and takes amazing pictures of New York: Toko. My New York flight in June (2011) was 435€, which was pretty good deal for summer. Especially in the summer months (end of june until first weekend in September) it is hard to find cheap flights to the States, which is annoyyying. If there is no other option than flying during those months, just try to book early. My flight now for end of August until mid September was still pretty expensive, which sucks a lot (and don't even get me started on hotels during Fashion week or official holidays. Urgh). In a way, there is not much to say here. Every time I go home to Germany, I fly with RyanAir. I am happy that there is the direct connection between Edinburgh and Bremen but at the same time I wish I had other affordable options. Anyway. I found that booking RyanAir flights is better when you use their "offers". They always have some sort of offer on flights in the next one to two months and you should make use of that. If you book earlier than that, they might actually be more expensive. So wait until it says on the website "Fly for 10€ in June and July" for example. They alwaysssssss do that, but obviously some months have cheaper offers than others. Flying to Edinburgh in February is ridiculously cheap for example, like 24€ for a return ticket. Summer not so much. Something else that is ridiculous, is paying 35€ for your luggage. I guess this does not help when you go on holiday, but sometimes sending a parcel is cheaper than that. Now you can't really cheat on your suitcase weight. You can go up to 20.4kg if you are allowed 20kg, but that is it. It is much easier to cheat on your hand luggage. A trick that is well known I guess and a bit obvious but still worth mentioning- if you fly from an airport where they weigh your hand luggage (Bremen for example), put everything heavy in your coat or your pants or wherever. Everytime I fly I am wearing two coats, have my laptop charger in my pocket and carry the bag with the liquids. They don't mind if they weigh your hand luggage without, so that is good. As soon as you are throug security you are fine and can put everything back in to your carry on. It is ridiculous and a pain, but working. And what I then like to do is buy cheap alcohol at the duty free shop, just because it costs twice (!!!) as much here in Edinburgh and I don't have to worry about the weight of my luggage. I love it, even though you get dodgy looks from people around you (especially because I always fly by myself, haha). A website I absolutely love is Exbir.de This is a German website (you can translate it but I am not sure how good that translation is) and it is run by absolute travel experts. These guys have traveled so much and mostly on a budget. They always find the best travel deals or error fares and you can even ask them personally. I know there are other websites like this around, but I feel this is so much more personal. I have asked them stuff myself and they know sooo much! Absolute gem! Now there is so much more to know about frequent flier programs, credit cards etc etc. But this is getting too fancy and complicated. I will list a lot of good and useful sites now, so make sure to check them out. There are so many good travel blogs out there, from people who have travelled anywhere and everywhere and have so much more to share than I do. So go and have a look at those, if you really wanna get into the whole business of traveling cheap. To finish up, just a couple of my favorite websites: Great travel blog with helpful tips for cheap travels http://www.nomadicmatt.com Can tell you when to book your flights. US based though http://www.farecompare.com/ Really good flight booking site etc. US based http://www.kayak.com/ Flights, holidays, hotels etc. UK http://www.travelpack.com Good flight offers, germany. good payment methods! http://www.lastminute.de UK based site- cheap flights etc http://www.netflights.com US based, flights and stuff   http://www.cheaptickets.com cool way to find cheap flights when you dont know where to go http://flightchecker.moneysavingexpert.com They have great offers for US flights with layovers in Iceland (only in summer though) www.icelandair.com Good offers! www.opodo.de Cheap flights... http://www.ebookers.de/           And one last tip- Cookies (the computer ones) can cost you money! Read this, and then delete your cookies especially when looking for cheap flights...   No responsibility is accepted for the accuracy of this information, this is all just based on my experience!

">www.icelandair.com
Good offers!
www.opodo.de
Cheap flights...
http://www.ebookers.de/

And one last tip- Cookies (the computer ones) can cost you money! Read this, and then delete your cookies especially when looking for cheap flights...

No responsibility is accepted for the accuracy of this information, this is all just based on my experience!