Original post
One of the most frequent questions I get asked – how do you book your flights? So, I’m super excited about this post & I hope y’all find it useful – 6 Websites to Find Cheap Flights …. plus a few more! Now, I don’t claim to know alllllll the secrets of the deep, dark web, but I do have a method + some really good sources to find great flight deals. One of my best finds – last November, my roundtrip flight to Colombia, from San Antonio was $530 on Delta! A few reasons why this is awesome – San Antonio is a really small airport and so it’s always expensive to fly in and out of, plus I booked my flight maybe 2 weeks before my trip. Also, I flew in to Bogotá, and flew out of Cartagena! So, all those factors considered, $530 was an awesome flight deal, no?
How I book my flights:
First things first, always use incognito mode in your web browser, to search for flights.
Why? Because websites track your cookies when you’re searching and the more times you go back to search the same itinerary, the higher the flight rates go.
Ok here’s my usual process for when I’m looking for flights, using my top 3 sites –
1. If I have a destination in mind, but am not set on dates, I use Google Flights and/or the Hopper app. Both sources are great to figure out when you can get the cheapest flights for the destination you wanna travel to. What I love about Hopper is that you can set alerts for when the price goes down on a flight itinerary you want. So, you can set up an alert months in advance and then …. you can wake up to a price drop notification one day & book your flight at an awesome fare! For Google Flights, you can see in the screenshot below how the cheapest dates are showing in green – 
Google Flights – option to view whole calendar by months, flexible dates, or a price graph.
2. If I have dates in mind, but am not set on a particular destination, I use Skyscanner – you can select the dates you wanna travel, & under “to”, put “everywhere” …. voila! With my unofficial resolution to take, at least, one trip/month this year, I use Skyscanner a lot. A little secret: Skyscanner.net, which is the Euro version, often has cheaper rates. You can thank me later! ;)
Skyscanner gives you a list of destinations, for your selected dates, by flight prices! You can click on the drop-downs on the right, for each country, to see all the different cities you can fly to, and the prices for each.
3. Another super secret source: Once I’ve decided on dates and destination, I check Momondo. You can find some amazing flight deals on Momondo, and it isn’t a very popularly known website! A few weeks ago, I was randomly searching (as I do pretty much on a regular basis), while trying to figure out where I should go in August, I looked on Momondo & saw a RT flight for Seattle for around $200 (usually around $500)! Cray cray, right?!
Sample Momondo search
Other websites & resources:
4. Subscribe at Scott’s Cheap Flights! While I’m sure there are plenty of other subscriptions of the type out there, Scott’s is my favorite. Subscribers can get daily emails with amazing, hard-to-resist flight deals, though they are mostly for Europe. If you’re looking to travel anywhere in Europe, you should sign up, and subscribers who pay can get even more incredible deals!
5. Airfare Watchdog: What I love about this site is that they let you compare a ton of other commonly used sites like Hipmunk, Orbitz, United, and a lot more! I’d also recommend following them on Twitter. Y’all can also set up alerts for a flight itinerary you’re looking for, on Airfare Watchdog!
Sample Airfare Watchdog search
6. Airline websites: While not all airlines have special deals on their sites, some airlines have frequent flash sales on their websites, especially for domestic flights within the US. They also have really good cancelation/change policies. Southwest and JetBlue are the two I frequently check for flash sales and domestic flight deals!
The above sites are the tried & tested ones that I use all the time, but here are a few more interesting sites that I’ve heard about (though not used myself) –
7. Yapta: This is a price tracker that you can use after you’ve already booked your flight (or hotel), and you can receive instant price drop alerts. They also inform you whether you’re eligible for a refund (based on each airline’s policy). Here’s a really good article on exactly how Yapta works – I definitely recommend y’all check that out, if you’re considering using Yapta!
8. Flightfox: Of course, in 2017, there’s a crowdsourced travel website! With Flightfox, once you’ve launched a trip request for Flightfox’s experts, they review your request, ask the necessary questions, and get to work to build the best itinerary for you, at the lowest price. There’s a fee for this service – starting at $50 and going up based on the complexity of your request, but you’re not charged the fee unless the bundle the experts find saves you more than the fee!
9. Adioso: This isn’t more for people with super flexible itineraries. Adioso allows you to conduct very vague, open searches like “Southeast Asia for 15 days in December” or “Vegas any Friday returning 2-3 days later”, and see what your cheapest/best flight options would look like. If you don’t see anything that works for you, you can sign up for email alerts, in case the price drops, on flights to your desired destination.
Lastly, a random tip: A lot of travel/airline websites work with eBates – make sure y’all sign up and install the eBates widget on your browser. This way – you can earn cash back on your bookings! Yayyyy for Mo’ Money!
Please share any thoughts/feedback in comments below, especially if you’d like to see more posts like this one! Also, if you’ve used Yapta, Flightfox and/or Adioso (or end up testing them out after reading this post), definitely share your experience below, as I’m super interested in hearing about these.
Hope y’all find this helpful! If you have any sites/apps that you use, that I missed here, please share! :)
