How to Find the Cheapest Plane Ticket

Recently, I've had a few people ask me how I find such cheap plane tickets and I decided to write a blog post, sharing all my secrets. So Ladies and Gentleman please take your seats and prepare for takeoff as I reveal my rad plane ticket tips.

I actually really enjoy hunting for plane tickets. Some people dread it, but the way I see it, finding plane tickets is the first step of a great adventure. I don't think there's quite anything like the anticipation of an upcoming trip and the adventures it will bring.

To begin my flight hunting, I always go to farecompare.com . This is by far my favorite and most used website when looking for plane tickets. Farecompare compares (redundant right?) plane tickets from many different sites including Expedia, CheapOair, TripAdvisor, you name it. It calculates all these different places to buy plane tickets and then finds the cheapest one. Now in doing this, I always play around with the dates and airports (if possible) to make sure I am getting the best deal. The universal consensus seems to be that the cheapest days to fly are Tuesdays and Wednesdays, so I always start my search by picking a Tuesday to fly out and a Wednesday to fly back. Of course this depends on your flexibility of times to travel, but it's a good place to start. From there, I play around with it and search different days to fly. This takes a decent amount of time I'm not gonna lie. But I said these are tips on finding the cheapest plane ticket, not tips on saving time. If prices don't seem to be where I want them to, which they never are - I have never been caught dead buying a plane ticket on the first day I've looked - I go to airfarewatchdog.com . On this website, I search the approximate dates and destination and then sign up for email alerts which notify me when prices drop. This website is really cool! You can sign up for alerts to watch round trip flights to and from certain cities or put in your nearest airport and get alerts for cheap tickets anywhere! (awesome if you have a flexible schedule and are itching to go on a trip somewhere).

A friend of mine recently told me about this awesome app - and I mean awesome - that is similar to Airfarewatchdog. The app is called Hopper, available on IOS and Android, and it is literally my dream app (if that makes me a travel nerd then so be it :b).

Hopper works similarily to Airfarewatchdog in the way that it watches trips for you. I find Hopper more valuable though because,

a) You are able to set alerts on your phone, which I check more frequently than my email anyway

b) You are able to be more flexible with the dates you want to watch

c) Not only does it alert you when prices are low, but coaches you when to buy (when prices are super low) or when to wait to find a better price.

So far Hopper has been an AWESOME tool for finding cheap plane tickets! I haven't actually bought a ticket via Hopper; I believe you can, but I still go to my trusty ole friend Farecompare to actually buy the ticket, so I can't tell you one way or another on that.

After doing these things, I wait until I get an email or a notification alerting me to a price decline (as shown in the picture to the left). Then I decide if the price is good enough to act on, or if I should gamble and keep waiting for it to drop. I usually gamble and wait for it to drop again (which it usually does). But the good thing about Hopper is that it tells you when you should buy before the price goes up.

When I finally decide to buy my plane ticket, I sit down with my laptop and begin the lengthy process of making sure I get the absolute best price out there at the time. I inspect Farecompare, making multiple upon multiple searches, again playing around with days and (if possible) airports to fly into. I go to Expedia, Google flights, and particular airline sites to make sure I'm getting the best deal. If you really want a good price, this may take some time, so make sure you are comfy, have a cup of tea or coffee, and hey put a smile on your face - you're about to go on an awesome trip! The next step is booking your flight! Which is a super exciting feeling, because it means you are on your way to adventure :).

If you have any further questions about finding cheap flights I would love to help you out in any way I can! As I said before, I love this kind of stuff.