Find Cheap Fares: Three Tips for Finding the Cheapest Plane Tickets

Travel agents and flight search websites do not offer the cheapest tickets. With a couple of hours to spare, you can find cheaper tickets so that your next dream trip wouldn’t have to be a financial nightmare. Let me tell you how.

Let’s get that passport stamped!

Cheap Fare Tip No. 1: Connect multiple low-cost flights from different budget carriers.

Most low-cost carriers automatically offer flights from A to B with a stopover in one of their hubs. Sometimes, however, it’s cheaper to use one company for the first leg, another for the second leg, and so on. This is especially true when two or more budget airlines run promotions simultaneously.

For example, you want to travel from Manila (MNL) to Tiruchirappalli (TRZ), round trip. AirAsia offers that route for around USD 750 with a stopover at Kuala Lumpur (KUL). That is, you will be boarding two AirAsia flights: MNL-KUL and KUL-TRZ. Round trip MNL-KUL costs around USD 400, while KUL-TRZ is at around USD 350. Now, if Cebu Pacific can offer MNL-KUL for USD 400, then you can fly MNL-KUL via CebuPac, and KUL-TRZ via AirAsia, saving you USD 200.

A Smorgasbord of Low Cost Carriers

Now, this works well if you have the right kind of passport. For Filipino passport holders, it’s better to transit through visa-free hubs such as Kuala Lumpur, Hong Kong, Bangkok, Singapore, and obviously, Manila.

Cheap Fare Tip No. 2: Budget airlines to a hub then transfer to a traditional carrier.

This cheap fare tip is an extension of Tip No. 1. As of this article’s writing, most budget airlines service only regional destinations and thus, do not offer intercontinental flights. Unless you’re lucky enough to reside in a major hub like Bangkok or Hong Kong, you will usually have to face the reality that these kinds of flights don’t come cheap.

A List of Traditional (i.e. not-low-cost) Airlines

These intercontinental (i.e. super long-haul) flights usually come in two segments: one from your city to a hub, and another from a hub to your final destination. For example, let’s consider a flight from Manila, Philippines to San Francisco, California:

EVA Air and China Airlines via Taipei, Taiwan

Cathay Pacific via Hong Kong

Japan Airlines (JAL) and All Nippon Airways (ANA) via Tokyo (Haneda or Narita)

Malaysia Airlines via Kuala Lumpur

Air China via through Beijing

Korean Air and Asiana via Seoul (Incheon, actually)

Singapore Airlines via Singapore

Thai Airways via Bangkok

Normally, it’s cheaper to just book flights with just one airline and in just one go. However, it’s a different story when a particular carrier offers promo rates for flights that do not originate from your city. For example, Cathay Pacific offers US$ 770 roundtrip flights from Hong Kong to San Francisco, down from the usual US$1000, but you are in Manila. The workaround would be booking a round-trip Manila-Hong Kong plane ticket that will connect you to that elusive promo flight.

Cheap Fare Tip No. 3: Book flights from official sites.

Flight search websites such as Expedia, SkyScanner, eDreams, Orbitz, tell you that they search all available flights and find the lowest prices for you, but this isn’t always the case. Aside from adding a fee for letting you use their service, they may also increase prices by taking into account your previous search history through cookies that they’ve saved in your browser. After all, you’re more likely to purchase tickets to Europe after searching for EU destinations for the past three days.

Cebu Pacific, for example, cannot be found in flight search websites.

Moreover, many budget carriers, to save on costs, do not publish their prices on other sites. That’s why it’s important to bookmark their websites so you can easily check their sites for special deals.

Cheap Fare Tip No. 4: Use Google Flight Search, then do a bit more research.

How cheap should a flight be? Get a benchmark of ticket costs using Google Flight Search so you can have a rough idea on how much you’ll need to shell out. After jotting down the cheapest fares from the search results, then it’s time to use the first three tips to find the cheapest available fares. Sometimes, Google Flight Search can be so good that you won’t even have to search any further. But if you got a few minutes to spare, a little shopping around shouldn’t hurt.

Use these figures a benchmark.

Cheap Fare Tip No. 5: Be on the lookout for new routes.

While most budget airlines are limited to regional routes, some carriers are starting to include intercontinental flights to their arsenal. For example, Cebu Pacific Air recently announced that they have secured rights to travel from Manila to San Francisco, Los Angeles, Honolulu, Guam and cities in Europe. While the actual flights may still be a long way off, it’s comforting to know that Condor Air, a German low-cost carrier, offers direct flights from Rangoon and Siem Reap to Frankfurt, so that opens up a lot of possibilities for those who wish to fly cheap from SE Asia to Europe.

Do you have more tips to share? Do you have questions to ask? Please leave a comment below!

Find Cheap Fares: Three Tips for Finding the Cheapest Plane Tickets