Cheap Flights Guide

We get asked so often how to find cheap flights, we finally decided to write a "Cheap Flights Guide" to demonstrate how we do it. It really isn't very difficult, but it does take some time - and a little know-how of the way flight search engines work. If you have any comments, advice or tips on how to make the Cheap Flights Guide better, let us know. Let's all fly as cheap as we can!

Step One

Travelocity Flex Search. Step one is to establish your price baseline. For that, go to the Travelocity flight search page, enter the airport information, and be sure to check either the "+/- 1 to 3 days" or the "Flexible dates" option. You get back their best prices for that time period - be sure to click around their different dates and options to zero in on the best price for your time period. Be sure to write down the best price you found, and the airline it's on.

Step Two

Orbitz Flight Search and Expedia Flight Search. Do a quick search on those two sites to see if you can beat the Travelocity price. Orbitz is the more likely of the two to have a good price - they are owned by several different airlines and have some exclusive fares. Expedia is a pure consolidator, but they do have the occasional lower price.

Step Three

Airline search. Next, go to the website for the airline that has the lowest fare so far, and do a search there. For instance, if you are looking for a flight between Phoenix and New York City and the lowest flight was on Delta, go to Delta.com and search for those same days. Airlines sometimes have to pay a small fee to have their flight information listed on the consolidator's sites, and many are now keeping exclusively low fares to themselves and only letting users of their own sites book them. You might get lucky.

Step Four

Discount Airline search. Are there any discount airlines that fly where you are going? Keeping in mind that many discount airlines don't have their fare listed on consolidator websites, be sure to check them out:

• Southwest Airlines
• Ted Airlines
• Jet Blue
• AirTran

Step Five

Vacation check. Will you be booking a hotel at your destination? If so, always check with the main travel sites for package deals - you can often save hundreds of dollars this way. Also look and see if your hotel has a "vacation package" option. While researching the Cheap Flights Guide I checked both flights to Las Vegas and flight/hotel packages to Las Vegas. The flight/hotel packages would invariably save a traveler a few hundred dollars!

At this point, it's a 95% chance that you won't find a flight any cheaper than what you have now. At least, without going to a little trouble.

Step Six

Hotwire and Priceline. These two sites offer excellent deals on flights, but in exchange you can't learn about many of the flight details before you book (except Priceline now offers flight deals similar to Orbitz in addition to their old format). The problem with both of these sites is that you sometimes miss out on a lot of flexibility when booking. For instance, you could book a Phoenix to New York flight scheduled to leave Phoenix on Friday and return on Sunday. That's great until you get the flight information and the flight leaves Phoenix at 11:30pm Friday night and the return flight leaves New York at 5:30am. That's not much of a weekend in New York City! You definitely need to be flexible when using these two sites - that's why we moved them this far down on the Cheap Flights Guide.

Step Seven

Smaller Airline search websites. At this point, it might be worthwhile to search the smaller sites and see if they happen to have any deals better than you have found. Here are our favorites:

• CheapTickets.com
• TravelNow

Step Eight

Other Airline websites. Be sure to check the airlines that you haven't yet looked at, including any regional carriers. They might have better deals:

• American
• United
• Delta
• Alaska
• Northwest
• Continental
• America West
• Frontier
• Midwest
• ATA
• Spirit

You're done! There's just a few things to remember:

1. Last-minute flights will almost always be more expensive - sometimes much more expensive. Always attempt to buy at least 21 days before you fly - at 21 days out airlines bump the prices up considerably, sometimes double or more!
2. If you are looking for a flight for a holiday period, absolutely book as early as possible. If you know you're going to be looking for a flight around Thanksgiving or Christmas, start looking in the summer. Flights go on sale roughly six months before the day of the flight (they are released in batches), and if you can get in right when the flight goes on sale, you can get a great deal. For instance, you can book a flight around Thanksgiving on Southwest for $59-$99 each way at the exact times you want, but only if you book within the first day or two that the flights go on sale. It pays to watch!
3. Remember that time has value, too. If you can save $10 over a non-stop flight by having two layovers and spending an extra four hours in an airport, is it worth it? Everyone has a different value for their time, so be sure to look at the flight details!
4. Speaking of details, be sure to read the small print on the flight. It's probably worth a few dollars for a flight that is changeable and/or refundable.

That's it for the Cheap Flights Guide. If you have any suggestions or comments, let us know. We'll be updating the Guide as often as new information comes available. Good luck!