Some people scroll on social media to pass the time; I scroll for cheap flights. Ok, and I scroll on social media, too. But finding cheap flights is one of my favorite pastimes, and I can easily get lost in an imaginary, spontaneous flight to somewhere and find myself just one click away from booking it. 

Oh, a flight to Denver is only $58? I mean, at these prices, I can’t afford not to go.

Before you start packing your suitcase, let me help you navigate the wonderful world of finding cheap flights. If you’re a double-platinum, million-mile member of an airline, this is not the article for you.

This article is for my budget travelers. Those who are haunted by wanderlust, but their wallets keep them from the next adventure. You, my friend, are my people. I’ve got your back. 

If you’re willing to put in a little time, you’ll be rewarded with a cheap flight to wherever the wind takes you. 

How to find cheap flights: flexibility with location and dates

All too often, a friend of mine will reach out to me with some variation of this question:

I need to go to [city] from [specific dates]. Can you find a cheap flight for me?

No. No, I cannot. That’s not how it works. If you are locked into the location and the date range, you’re at the mercy of the airlines. If you want to fly to New York for Thanksgiving, you’re going to pay top dollar for it. Free yourself of at least one of those variables, and a whole new world of possibility will be available to you. 

For example, say you want to take a vacation from November 2-12, but you don’t care where you go. With a little help from Google Flights, you can find where the cheapest places to go (in the world!) for those dates. You may surprise yourself with your search results and end up on a vacation you would have never imagined!

My home airport is New Orleans. When I plugged those dates into Google Flights, here’s what I got:

• Flights to Vegas, Denver, Chicago, and Miami each for under $200

If I wanted to expand to include international flights for the same dates:

• Flights to Aruba and Toronto each for under $500. 

On the flip side, say your heart is set on the location, but your dates are flexible. You can use Google Flights to see the flight prices each day and see when those cheap flights pop up. 

A calendar will pop up and tell you the price of the flight for every day that month, which is really helpful. The flight may be $50 cheaper on a Thursday versus a Friday; knowing these little tips and tricks adds up to more money in your pocket.

Understanding your airport and using it to book cheap flights

Understanding your airport is truly the key ingredient to finding cheap flights. Not all airports are equal, and even though an airport may be an international airport, you still might find that it doesn’t fly to places you want to visit. Looking at you, MSY.

Let’s use the Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport (MSY) as an example. MSY hosts 15 airlines and has more than 50 direct flights a day. 

The more direct flights an airline flies to a location, the cheaper the plane ticket will be. 

There are 7-8 flights from New Orleans to Dallas a day. American Airlines flies this route 7-8 times a day, and Spirit Airlines has one flight a day.

Let’s look at some others:

• New Orleans to Chicago: 4-5 per day (American Airlines and United Airlines)
• New Orleans to Boston: 2-3 per day (Delta and JetBlue)
• New Orleans to Miami: 3 per day (American Airlines) and 4 per week (Spirit)
• New Orleans to Newark: 3 per day (United) and 6 per week (Spirit)
• New Orleans to Los Angeles: 4-5 per day (Delta, Southwest, and Spirit)

Why is this important? More flights per day mean that the flights are typically cheaper, you have more flights to choose from, and in the event of a delay, you won’t have to wait as long for the next flight. 

Your final destination is probably not going to be a direct flight from your home airport. I like to spend my winters traveling around Scandinavia, embracing the Arctic weather and chasing the Northern Lights. Regretfully, New Orleans doesn’t fly directly to anywhere on that side of the globe, so I have to do some tinkering. 

I do know that Play Airlines has a direct flight to Iceland from Boston every evening around 7 p.m. So I just need to get to Boston by 5 p.m. Lucky for me, there are 2-3 flights per day from New Orleans to Boston, so catching that international flight is fairly easy.

Many websites track direct flights. FlightsFrom and DirectFlights are my favorites to tinker with.

If you patch together your own flights, it’s important that you are team carry-on only. If you buy two separate plane tickets, your checked luggage will not arrive at its final destination unless you retrieve it during your layover and re-check it. Save yourself the headache and just travel with a carry-on and a backpack. I promise you don’t need all of the extra stuff. 

What is the best day to book cheap flights?

You’ve probably heard that Tuesdays are the best day to book flights. Historically, that’s been true! Airlines used to release their sales on Tuesdays, which is where that stemmed from. 

The truth now is, it depends.

It depends on when the airlines put their sales online. Expedia and Google have both done studies on this topic, and the results were that there really isn’t much of a difference.

Don’t confuse the best day to book your flight with the best day of the week to fly. Mondays and Fridays are the busiest days of the week to fly, so take that into consideration when you book your flight. The airport(s) will be busier, and the flights have a bigger chance of being full. 

Tuesdays and Wednesdays tend to be less crowded days to fly. 

All of this goes out the window if you’re flying around the holidays. Thanksgiving will always be one of the busiest times to fly. Same for Christmas, New Year’s, and any other major U.S. holiday. 

The key factors in finding cheap flights:

• Don’t fly during peak seasons (holidays)
• Be flexible on your date and/or destination
• Understanding your home airport 
• Booking directly with the airline

Booking directly with the airline

There are many websites that will do the hard work for you. Kiwi, Skyscanner, and Dollar Flight Club are the most popular. I've used Kiwi and Skyscanner to buy cheap flights in the past, and I lucked out and had zero issues. Now that I'm a more seasoned traveler, I don't know if I would let a third party book my flights again.

When you use a third party, you're gambling. If your flight gets delayed or canceled, you won't be able to take it up with the airline directly – you'll have to go through the company you booked your flight with. It's not just travel agency websites like Kiwi, GetYourGuide, or Viator, though. This also applies if you use your credit card travel portal to book flights/hotels.

Everything works fine until it doesn't. When it doesn't, the hoops you have to jump through will quickly outweigh whatever money you saved in the first place. Since I tend to keep my travels to the winter, storms play a bigger role in my journey than I want them to. If a flight gets delayed because of a storm, I'm at the mercy of a third party to fix my itinerary. And they typically don't offer any hotel credits, food vouchers, or anything like you would get from an airline.

If you're going on a spontaneous weekend getaway, then I'd say go for it. If this is an important trip that you've spent half a year saving and planning for, I wouldn't risk it.

Whenever possible, book your flight directly with the airline. Once you find a flight on sites like Google Flights, go to the airline's website to book it.

Once you’ve snagged that cheap flight, you can use the money you saved for adventures during your travels! You can use it to pick your favorite seat on the plane (window, duh) or use the extra cash to get a nicer hotel. 

Good luck and safe travels, my friends.