Unless You Love Bargain Hunting, Finding The Best Airfare Deal Is A Daunting Task
While searching the many possible cheapest roundtrip airfare rates from Buffalo, NY to Amsterdam, I stubled upon an article that may save me hundreds of dollars on airfaire. I guessed the trip would likely cost in the $900-$1,200 range just for flying, but using the "Thrifty Nomads" guide Click Here to view I found a flight for much less money.
for those interested in seeing all the tips in one place, I will do my best to briefly summarize the post
- Search in Private browsing or incognito mode. Some airlines will boost prices if you continually search for the same flight in multiple flight search engines. (I had no idea this happened, but it is smart marketing even if misleading)
- Use the best flight search engines - Skyscanneris the most highly recommended search and is the one I chose
- Identify the cheapest day to fly out - THis can be done with skyscanner with instructions in the original article, but I found the savings to be minimal in my case.
- Befriend budget airlines - The thrifty nomads recommend checking some airlines that offer no frills airfare, but the traveler needs to read the fine print so as not to be hit with fees - Again, not as vital in my case.
- Book long-haul flights yourself for less - This may be helpful to those who are great at planning their own trips instead of letting the airline pick out the connecting flights.
- Find the cheapest place to fly - Kayak Explore -
Kayak Explore is a fun little tool to get the wanderlust going and save some big bucks. Hop on their site and enter your departure city, then select a month or season to fly. Approximate costs then appear over hundreds of countries around the globe from your departure point, allowing you to see the most cost-effective place you can fly.
This tool can also be hugely handy to find out how you can cover the most distance for the lowest cost, even if you have a set destination. For example, maybe you want to go to Berlin, Germany from NYC but flying straight there is pricey. There are heaps of budget airlines in Europe, Ryanair being the most popular, so once you’re in Europe you can fly around pretty cheap. What you need to find out next then is what’s the cheapest European country to fly into first, which is where this site comes in handy.
- Use a travel agent - They suggest researching the best price you can find and looking for further deals through a travel agent if necessary.
- If you know when and where you’re going, don’t wait to book - Most people know this already, but usually the earlier, the better.
There a few other suggestions, but I feel those were the most likely to give big discounts for those traveling longer distances.
I found by selecting nearby airports I can save a bit of money and fly out of Canada. Hopefully others in the Northeastern part of the US can see this and it may allow them to fly, when tickets from elsewhere can be closer to $1,000
This would be my first time out of the country alone, so any other savvy travelers with money saving tips who would like to weigh in would be greatly appreciated.
Credit @beanz for commenting with another great tip!
I never choose return when checking prices. Whenever I choose a return flight I often find either the flight going over or the one coming back is twice the cost of the other, and with another airline it could be completely the other way around.
For example in Ireland there are 2 airlines we fly with, Ryanair and aer lingus. When I choose a flight going out of Ireland either one could be cheaper (usually Ryanair). And when I search for one way tickets coming back home it often turns out that the other airline is cheaper. For this reason I always check the price for one way because return will put you on the same airline both ways which often works out more expensive.
Credit @knozaki2015 for this tip! if you are in north america check miami-oslo or copenhagen with SAS. they were offering flights oneway for 98 Euro!
