Last week in the #TravelforLazybums we covered the very first step to start planning your travel, now that you already know where you want to go to, it’s time to start taking some real actions, and spending some real money as well.
Let’s talk about your ticket! The guarantee of your next adventure! There are many tips to get cheaper flights, but in general, what you really need is flexibility.
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other contents
How to choose your destination.
Buying your Flight and Travel Insurance
Picking the Perfect Accommodation
And Now, What to Pack?
How to buy your Flight
Flexibility
The first rule of the Cheap Flight Club: Don’t be a picky cat.
It is the tip number one if you want to save a lot of money on flights. If you are too specific about date, hour, airport, your chances of getting a cheap flight will drop just like your hopes.
So don’t try to play hard with air companies, we never win. Be very flexible instead. Just look for the cheapest months to travel, some sites have this option, like Skyscanner, in others, you need to look day by day until you find a good deal.
Most of the time you won’t have many options of hours to flight, some routes there is only one flight a day, and the best hours are obviously more expensive, so be prepared and don’t bother yourself in looking for hours to flight, just pick one that is cheap, the important is to arrive at your destinations.
Some cities have more than one airport, and some are cheaper than others, another tip is, maybe you want to go to one city, but there is another city nearby where flights are even cheaper than the city you were planning to go to, so why not changed cities instead?
You can take a bus or a train to the city you want to visit later!
Especially in Europe, it is so easy to move around and go from one city/county to the other, so you can also check flights to nearby countries if they don’t happen to be cheaper than to the country you plan to go, in a positive case you get the Bonus of visiting another country besides the one you had in mind.
Bear in mind: almost anything is valid if it comes to saving money. Just don’t bother yourself, it is all part of the adventure.
Season
Summer days can be great, the weather is warm, the gardens are beautiful, the trees are green, the light looks perfect. Yeah, I understand, but just like you think like this, everybody else also thinks the same way, not only that, air companies and hotels also think like that too!
What a coincidence! But while you picture a nice vacation, they picture their bank account numbers.
There are high seasons and low seasons and in most places, the summer is considered their high season, so here we face that law of supply and demand. It is the period of the year where everybody wants to travel so it is comprehensive that air company and hotels will raise their prices.
Autumn and winter are the cheapest seasons to travel. But of course, depending on where you are planning to go, winter can be a kind of bad decision for many reasons, first, it will be too cold and you should be prepared to freeze a little bit, and by little bit I mean, bring your gloves to make sure you will have all your fingers still when you go back home.
Especially if you get a snow season it can mess your plans a little. Autumns too can be pretty cold but at least the weather will be better than on winters and it will be more chill to walk around.
Holidays and weekends
Just like summers, when everybody decides to travel, holidays and weekends too are days that everybody takes advantage of to travel. So again the law of supply and demand, the prices of airfare and hotels will be more expensive than during the rest of the week.
So a tip, when you are looking for cheap flights online, is to avoid looking for flights on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays, and here we can consider Mondays as well because as Sundays, many people will be coming back from their trips.
Try to get flights in the middle of the week in noncommercial hours.
Low-Cost Airline
There are several low-cost airlines working around the world. From travels inside Europe especially, I recommend taking them. Trains can be very expensive sometimes and for real, the cheapest way to travel from country to country is by plane. Companies like Ryanair offer flights for €10 depending on the route and day.
There are low-cost airlines that also cover bigger routes like for example Royal Air Maroc who offers flights from America to Europe and North Africa for a relatively cheaper price.
Where to get tickets online
Skyscanner
Skyscanner is a Flight search engineer. It finds the best deals and re-directs you to the site where he found it. In my opinion, this is the most organized site to find cheap flights. When filling the information, instead of informing the dates, you can choose “Cheapest Month” so the site directs you exactly to the best offers available in the year.
Decolar
Perfect for those buying tickets in the Americas. If you choose the option “Didn’t decide my dates yet” the site directs you to the best deals they have during the year. But pay attention to the number of days for each offer as they differ from one another. Although it doesn’t seem to be such a popular site worldwide, I have got pretty good flight deals on it. Besides flights, you can also book hotels, tours and rental cars.
Expedia
This is another site where you can centralize your travel bookings, from flights to hotels and rental cars, it makes it easier to organize your travel and in some cases, helps you to save some money as well. They have good flight deals all the time.
Travel Insurance
So you bought your flight ticket, but then what? Well, in international travel, it is necessary to buy a Travel Insurance.
“Is it obligatory?” you will ask me, yeah little padawan, it is. “But what is it?” well, basically it covers your dispenses if something not cool happens to you, and “not cool” can mean many things, from a tuk-tuk running you over in the Indian traffic to your luggage full of donuts going missing.
Different Insurances cover different dispenses, but in general Travel Insurances covers your dispenses in case you hurt yourself, lose your luggage and other travel-related dramas.
Perhaps you will look at me like puuff, I don’t need it, I’m going to Thailand next month and I totally know how to ride an elephant, yolo.
Well, maybe you are really an elephant master but taking precautions is never too much. I know cases of people who were asked for their Travel Insurance paper at the airport’s immigration. Plus it is so cheap that there is no reason to take risks!
For Travel Insurance I recommend World Nomad. The interface of their website is really simple compared to others, you just need to inform the country you are traveling to, your own country, and the dates of your trip and it gives you the quote.
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Yaaaaayyy so you already know your destination and already bought your ticket, now you need to start looking for accommodation! That’s what we gonna be covering next week, so don’t forget to subscribe to make sure you won’t miss it!
22 Comments
BonBon
25 de September de 2017 at 12:53I love that you are making a point of how travel insurance is really important. I couldn’t agree more.
amit
25 de September de 2017 at 16:57As a long-term budget travel you have some very good and valid points to this post. I particularity agree with being flexible. To get a decent price and a decent airline you cannot be picky; however over the years I’ve found booking on certain days at certain times IE on Tuesdays and early flights tend to be cheapest. But you do have to really shop around and not just go off one compare site. My next post covers how I find my flights and it’s very similar to this method – Genuinely this was a good read 😀 😀
Roger
27 de September de 2017 at 13:28Fantastic article I enjoyed reading it thank you very much
MissJess
28 de September de 2017 at 03:07My honey and i will be flying across country this next year to attend a wedding and i will definitely be implementing some of your useful tips! Thank you for the help. 😊
Isadora
28 de September de 2017 at 13:07Thank you!! I hope the tips will be helpful for you guys! 😀
Yolanda Miller
28 de September de 2017 at 12:16Great article. I need to learn how to be more flexible when booking, but it is so hard when you only have a certain amount of days off.
Sylvie Anne Hanes
28 de September de 2017 at 12:59Great tips – I would also suggest to check often and to sign up with the airlines or search groups for notification if flights become available for set dates. I am looking to book a flight to Madrid for next April, and get the updated prices each week – once it gets close to my price range, I will book. Let other search engines do the work for me! Also, be flexible for last minute deals… if one’s schedule permits. Thanks for sharing
Isadora
28 de September de 2017 at 13:11Hey Sylvie! This is a great tip!! It’s a way to also save your time from searching! Thank you for the idea!
Shibani
28 de September de 2017 at 13:11Enjoyed reading your post. I know almost everyone want to travel in little warm weather while I’m opposite and I like to travel in colder condition ~ leaving christmas & new year prices are rocket high then.
Amber
28 de September de 2017 at 15:16Great tips! We travel a lot, and know a lot about booking flights, but I did not know about SkyScanner. Thanks for that! Totally agree with the need to be flexible for cheap flights, and lots of great points in this article!
dawn
28 de September de 2017 at 15:49we used expedia for our recent trip to the bahamas. it was awesome! there were no issues and we had an absolute blast. 🙂
Tayler Morrell
28 de September de 2017 at 21:33These are some great tips! We definitely researched and researched when we bought our family Christmas plane tickets!
Jen Temcio
28 de September de 2017 at 22:07Depending on how much money can be saved I think it is worth some inconvenience. We often take flights that are off times and off days to save a lot. We are used to sleeping on planes and in the airports – ha ha.
Lois Alter Mark
28 de September de 2017 at 22:39These are all great tips. It can be so overwhelming to try to find the best flights for the best prices. I’m definitely going to try some of these.
Ingrid
29 de September de 2017 at 00:05I have tried Expedia. It really offers good deals for travel within the country. However for international travel I am not so sure. Nonetheless you are a valuable resource in your niche ,one that is worth tapping into
Cynthia
29 de September de 2017 at 06:43Yes, these are great tips, except that, at least in my case, flexibility is not an option! I can only travel during certain times of the year as I have a full-time job. I can only travel in December and unfortunately is a busy season! So for me, it’s like a lottery. I’ve found that buying directly at the airline sometimes (only sometimes) gives me a better price, and I’m not picky about airports 😀 as long as I have a visa I’ll take as many stops as possible to make the trip as affordable as possible.
Vy Nguyen
29 de September de 2017 at 12:31Thanks for your tips. I do not often travel by plane. But these tips are true for every kind of traveling tickets. Thanks a lot. It is very helpful
Stephanie
29 de September de 2017 at 22:39Yay! Thank you for putting together this guide! Will be traveling internationally early next year and getting a ticket can be overwhelming, at least for me. Will bookmark this for reference! Oh and love the seasonal hack for buying cheaper tickets 🙂
Krysti
29 de September de 2017 at 23:07Love these points! It’s so important to be flexible if you want to save some money. I quite often use Skyscanner and Expedia myself. Great post!
Victoria Moore
30 de September de 2017 at 21:55This is really helpful, thank you! Pinning this for later, you da bomb! <3
Carol Cassara
1 de October de 2017 at 07:12These are great tips for people who loves to travel. I think it’s good to be able to save on tickets. Thanks for the sites that are worth checking out as well.
Alex
13 de November de 2017 at 14:26Great tips! I especially like how you give a few different sites – will definitely look into using them!