Flight Booking Hacks - Save Some Serious Money on Flights

Finding a cheap flight is a great way to start planning your next adventure.

It’s how I start planning all my trips.

Check out these flight booking hacks where you will learn how to use new search techniques and plan trips.

Read on now to learn how to smash your flight budget and get some great trip ideas.

Table of Contents

Author Bio – Melanie Newdick, Professional Traveller

+36 years travelling for work. Visited +40 countries (many multiple times)
Stayed in over 700 hotels. Taken +9,500 on coach holidays
Check all out my best money saving resources

1. Flight Booking Hacks – Search Everywhere from Starting Airport

How do I find the best cheap flights?

If you are completely flexible about where you want to go you can find the best cheap flights by searching ‘everywhere’ or ‘anywhere’ from your preferred departure airport. Using larger airports with more flights will help you to find the best deals.

Doing an ‘everywhere’ search is a great way to start planning a trip if you are flexible about where you want to go (and when!).

It’s often how I start planning a trip – finding a cheap flight to a destination I want to visit.

Skyscanner is ideal for this search.

Let me show you exactly what I do when I use this search.

In the following example, I am doing an ‘everywhere’ search from London Gatwick.

I set the ‘from’ to Gatwick Airport

I set the ‘to’ to everywhere

I set the depart to October 2024 and left the return blank

Choose which country you would like to visit based on the flight prices. In this example I chose Greece.

You can then see the destinations available within that country.

Click on the dates you would like to depart and return (if booking a return flight). You will then see a box that gives the total price at the bottom of the page.

Flight Booking Hacks

2. Reverse Flight Search

A reverse flight search is simply a search where you start from the destination you want to visit and find out which routes fly there.

Then you use the routes you have found to plan your outward flights.

This is one of my favourite flight hacks because it often shows cheap routes and is a way to put a great two or three-destination trip together.

In this example, I selected United Arab Emirates as the ‘from’ airport.

In the ‘to’ box I chose everywhere.

For the date, I chose January 2024.

From the results, you can see that there are cheap flights from the United Arab Emirates to Oman, Kuwait, and Jordan.

That could make a nice base to visit those other countries.

The next step is to check how to get from the UK to the United Arab Emirates. This time I put the United Arab Emirates in as the ‘from’ and ‘United Kingdom’ in as the to.

That shows all the places in the UK that fly to the United Arab Emirates.

You get the idea!

For a more detailed guide to reverse flight searching check out my article How to Find Cheap Flights to Anywhere

Flight Booking Hacks

3. Searching Flights Flying To or From Hub Airports

Around the world, there are various hub airports that serve as major connecting points for a large number of flights.

These often have great value flights available flying from or to them because of the volume of flights they have.

Hub airports include;

London Heathrow
Amsterdam
Moscow
Dubai
Singapore
Bangkok
Los Angeles

Dublin Airport – this is also one of the few airports that has US security clearance meaning once you have cleared security in Dublin you are free to go straight through on landing in the US.

Iceland – they have some great flight deals to the US

Istanbul – already mentioned but worth highlighting again but adding more capacity to the new airport.

Flight Booking Hacks

4. Use Kayak Explore Budget Search

I really like the Kayak Explore feature. It’s a great way to see how far your budget will take you.

It allows you to select your starting airport and get prices for the cheapest flights which are shown on a world map.

This is a good way to get some travel inspiration.

You can also refine your search by setting a budget and seeing how far you can travel for that budget.

Here is an example using a search from London Gatwick.

From the menu on the left hand side choose ‘Explore’

Select where you want to start from. Then set the destination as ‘anywhere’.

Set the duration as anytime, any duration.

Then select your budget. In this example I have selected £100.

Scroll around the map to see where you can fly to.

Select the route that you are interested in

Scroll down to see the destination information including flight times and details.

Flight Hacks

5. Use the Hopper App

Hopper is an app where you can research flight options.

It is only available as an app.

There are two main reasons I like Hopper;

You can set an alert for a route which will let you know about prices
When you research a route and look at the prices the app tells you if the price is likely to reduce or increase which is useful

Flight Booking Hacks

6. Check Package Deals

It’s always worth checking whether flights and hotels booked separately are cheaper than package deal options.

Loveholidays is a great package site, with some helpful search options.

You can include or exclude destinations to search for. You can also set lots of filters such as review rating, star rating and more.

The other thing I like about Loveholidays is that the flight information is clear and there are plenty of options for changing the included flights, again with clear pricing.

Here is an example of a search I did.

I set the destination as anywhere.

I set the departure airport as London Gatwick.

I selected the whole month of January 2024 as the departure date.

I set the trip length to 4 nights.

I got a huge amount of results so just had a quick skim through them

An all-inclusive stay in Turkey caught my eye so I had a look at the details

I then looked at the information and saw that there were several departure dates available for the headline price.

Scroll down to check different flight options

flight booking hacks altnerative flights

The flight options show that there is an earlier flight on the last day available for an extra £50.

content?promo id=4657&shmarker=268973&type=init&trs=33799

Flight Booking Hacks

7. Easyjet Cheap Fare Finder

Easyjet has a great function for finding cheap flights on their website.

On the Easyjet homepage hover over ‘Flight Info’ to get drop-down page as shown below

In the middle column select ‘cheap flights’

Scroll down the page until you find the search box and put in your starting point and destination.

Once you select the starting point your destinations will be Easyjet flight destinations. It will show you in the list which ones are direct and which ones are not from the airport you have chosen to fly from

You will then see a list of months and flight prices so you can find the cheapest options available.

Click on the month to open up the list of daily flight times and prices

This search takes a bit of time but it’s another way to find cheap flights

Flight Booking Hacks

8. Easyjet Inspire Me

If you click on the Easyjet Flight Info as detailed above, and go to the second column you will also see an option called ‘Inspire Me’.

You simply put where you would like to fly from, what season you would like to go, what type of trip you would like and your budget, and you will get some Easyjet options as shown in the image below.

9. Map Searching

You can also try using flight search tools such as the ones below. The map search has some great flight deals. Just hover over the prices for more information on the flights, and click to learn more.

At any one time there are a million people on planes

Flight Booking Hacks

7. Monitor Ticket Release and Sales

Martin Lewis’s fab Moneysavingexpert site has this brilliant list of airlines and when they release their seats – really helpful if you are able to plan ahead.

It is certainly a handy way to know when all the tickets are being released.

This can be a great way to find flights to particular destinations that you might be interested rather than taking a more flexible approach by searching for cheap flights to anywhere in the world.

Flight Booking Hacks

8. Check One Way Versus Return Flights

When checking prices for flights it is always worth checking prices for one-way and return flights.

Sometimes two one-way tickets can be cheaper and it is sometimes easier to work out flight times that suit you best.

In this example, I searched for return flights from London Gatwick to Antalya in Turkey in April 2024. The cheapest flight out in April is £59 with a return costing the same.

Doing the same search for a single flight brings up a flight for £47.

Flight Deals

9. Check Flights With a Stop For Cheaper Options

It can sometimes be cheaper to take flights that are not direct.

This can also be a good way to get an idea for a trip. Why not book the two flights and have an overnight stop or longer on the way and hey presto you have got an extra place to visit?

Some longer haul flights offer free stopovers – you just need to pay the cost of the accommodation so this can be a great way to see somewhere else and also avoid potential issues with jet lag too.

Flight Booking Hacks

10. Consider Flight Clubs

That’s flight clubs rather than fight clubs!

There are a couple of these but probably the most well-known is Scott’s Cheap Flights. You can join for free and get a limited number of flight offers or pay a membership fee and get more offers.

Scott’s Cheap Flights offers a premium membership for £49. A lot of these flights are US-based so maybe try out the free version before you commit to spending.

The selection of flights is quite varied so if you are happy to take a cheap flight anywhere then this could be a great way to get a bargain. Be prepared to jump on it quickly.

Flight Booking Hacks

11. Consider Another Airport to Reach Your Destination

Ryanair really developed the trend of flying from cheaper airports. A good example is their flight to Venice which flies into Treviso which is 27km from Venice and connected by a bus so very easy to reach. These cheaper airports offer cheaper flights so it is worth having a check of these too.

If you are thinking of flying to or from a city or destination just search for the nearest airport and use these for your flight searches to check if prices are cheaper. Of course, you need to factor in the extra time and transport that might be involved in using these airports.

If you enjoy using public transport when travelling these can be great options with a chance to see a bit more of the place you are visiting and local life!

Skyscanner now offers the option to search using nearby airports. This can be handy in destinations close to other airports and other countries.

Flight Booking Hacks – Conclusion

A bit of research and know-how can get you some cheap flight deals, helping you make the most of your holiday budget.
Spending a bit of time searching can be a great way to start planning your trip.
Reverse flight searching and searching everywhere can yield some great deals.
Being flexible about when and where you are going will give you access to the best deals.