How to find cheap flights in 2023

“How do I find cheap flights?” is one of the most common questions asked in travel forums. But there’s much more to bagging an affordable flight than the website you use to do it. We asked our favourite travel experts from Jack’s Fight Club, The Points Guy and Skyscanner for their ultimate tips on how to find cheap flights.

What is the cheapest month of the year to fly?

These are the most expensive months to travel:

• Mid-July – August
• Mid-December – early January
• Early – mid-April

The cheapest months to travel are:

• November – early December
• Late January – March

“There is no universal cheapest month of the year to fly. It really depends on your destination. For example, popular summer destinations (think: Mexico, Italy) will be more expensive when booking summer travel. Areas known for winter sports such as Vail or the French Alps will be more expensive during ski season,” explains Madison Blancaflor, senior editor at The Points Guy. “Many popular destinations have shoulder seasons where you can find cheaper prices without sacrificing good weather, so it’s worth doing your research on peak, off-peak and shoulder seasons for your desired destination when you’re planning your trip.”

“Knowing the cheapest and most expensive seasons to travel is a great place to start when considering your next holiday,” says Jack Sheldon of Jack’s Flight Club. “Avoid peak travel-season dates, such as school holidays and bank holidays, and you’ll generally find both flights and accommodation much more affordable.”

What is the cheapest day to fly?

Figuring out the cheapest days of the week to fly is pretty self-explanatory – most people prefer to fly across the weekend to avoid taking holiday days for travel. “Generally, the cheapest days to fly are Monday to Wednesday. These are followed closely by Sunday and Thursday” Jack says. “Fridays and Saturdays are almost always the most expensive.”

“Nobody really wants to travel on a Tuesday – either you have to work one day before you go away, or you waste a day's leave before you head off,” adds Katy Maclure, editor of The Detour, a weekly newsletter from Jack’s Flight Club. “Fridays and Saturdays are peak travel times for weekend trips and those looking to travel without taking extra time off work.”

What is the cheapest time to buy flights?

“Unfortunately, there’s no magic time of day when airfare is always cheaper. Staying up until midnight or setting an alarm for 1:58 won’t help your chances of scoring a deal,” Madison tells us. “However, more so than choosing a specific day and time to book, being flexible and jumping on deals can be the key to cheaper airfare. Booking on Sundays can lead to a five per cent dip in costs for domestic flights and a 15 per cent dip for international flights, according to the Airlines Reporting Corporation.”

“Flight prices fluctuate all the time, and it’s not uncommon to see prices for a route change multiple times in a single day. If you’ve ever kept an eye on flights over a few weeks, you’ll have seen fares go up and down – often with price differences of up to 50 per cent between the highest and lowest fare,” explains Jack. “Scoring a good price on a flight is all about knowing the absolute cheapest price for your route and pulling the trigger at the right time.

"Tools like Google Flights can help: set up fare alerts for your dates and destination, and it will check the price of the flight once a day and email you when the price has changed. After a few weeks, you should be able to get an idea of a high and low price for your dates. Simply book the next time it falls to snag the savings.”

What is the best way to find cheap domestic flights?

“In the UK and Europe, you'll usually find cheap domestic flights with budget airlines. But as we all know, costs soon add up once you add the price of full-size hand luggage or a checked bag. If you do need luggage, choosing flagship airlines like British Airways or Lufthansa will often work out much the same, if not better” Katy explains.

“We'd also suggest train travel for domestic routes. If you can plan ahead, train tickets are cheapest when they're made available, around three months in advance. Once you add up the time spent travelling to and from the airport, time in the airport, and time in the air, it's usually much the same as a train from London to Edinburgh, for example. In the US, the domestic market is almost as varied as the international market, since the country is so large, but the same rules apply when considering budget vs larger airlines.”

What is the best way to find cheap international flights?

The general consensus for finding cheap international flights is to use all of the tools at your disposal. Set up flight alerts from Skyscanner, Google Flights and Hopper, sign up for flight hacking newsletters from The Points Guy and Jack’s Flight Club. “̌There are also plenty of subscription services that will send deal alerts directly to your inbox, including Going (formerly Scott’s Cheap Flights) and Dollar Flight Club,” adds Madison.

What is the cheapest flight booking site?

“Kick off the hunt for affordable plane fares on Google Flights. This is the tool our experts use the most while in the early stages of looking for cheap tickets,” says Jack. “There are two main ways to use this search engine. Firstly, if you’ve not yet set dates for your trip, use the price calendar tool. Enter a destination and adjust the length of your trip. Then scroll through month by month: Google displays the best price for each day, and highlights the absolute cheapest options in green.”

“Alternatively, the Google Flights map feature is ideal for those with fixed dates but no set destination. For example, say you want to make the most of the late May bank holiday by planning a long weekend. Enter your dates and the most convenient airport to fly out of, then search for a region rather than a specific destination. If you were after some early summer sunshine, entering ‘southern Europe’ would display a list of destinations in that region, and the price of a flight to each place on your chosen dates – allowing quick and easy price comparison.”

What are the best flight search engines?

“If you’re arranging a short-haul holiday, find the best dates on Google Flights and book directly with the airline, as it’s unlikely that you’ll find a cheaper ticket elsewhere,” explains Jack. “If you’re planning to fly long-haul, you’ve got options, as OTAs (online travel agents) will often offer the same tickets for less. Price aggregators such as Skyscanner and Momondo step in here to compare the prices offered by the airlines as well as those available from various other OTAs, and the savings can be substantial – from £20 to £80 per person on a long-haul economy flight, to hundreds of pounds on business-class tickets.”

“Looking for deals directly through an airline’s website is also an underrated way to find deals. Southwest, American, Delta and United all have deal pages on their sites. The deals found there aren’t always winners, but airlines do sometimes offer stellar short-term deals.” Madison advises. “If you are flexible on travel dates and destination, Google’s Explore tab is a great resource to easily see destination options with pricing.”

How do you compare cheap flights?

“Google Flights displays prices offered directly by the airlines themselves. While these prices are getting better all the time, there are still some carriers that don’t yet appear, especially smaller regional airlines,” Jack says. “I always recommend checking at least one other website to compare prices once you’ve narrowed down travel dates and destination. Cross-reference with OTA price aggregators such as Skyscanner and Momondo, which will sometimes include additional carriers that aren’t shown on Google Flights.”

How can you find the cheapest flight routes?

Be flexible with your dates and destinations

“Whatever your destination, Skyscanner’s live prices data also shows there are incredible deals for travellers who can be flexible and know how to shop around. Travellers who fly at less popular times and days will find the biggest savings. An added bonus? The airports are likely to be less crowded too,” explains Laura Lindsay, Skyscanner’s resident travel expert. “And, according to our latest research, almost half (49 per cent) of UK travellers say they would be likely to swap their holiday favourites for an alternative option if it meant they were likely to save money. This is reflected in an increase in searches to underrated, alternative destinations this year on Skyscanner, such as Biarritz + 166 per cent and Valencia +165 per cent.”

Explore new flight routes

“One of the best ways to score a cheap flight – and enjoy a destination before the masses descend – is to look out for the launch of new routes. It normally takes at least a year for an airline to generate substantial awareness of a new flight path. In that first year, there will be frequent price drops and lower fares in order to drive ticket sales and raise the route’s profile,” Jack tells us.

We asked Katy to let us in on some recent examples of new flight routes. “Both Ryanair and Wizz Air have launched a raft of routes to Tirana, Albania, from all over the UK and Europe over the last year. We've seen some of them go as low as £30!” she says. “Another great example is Bamboo Airways' non-stop flights to Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. They've come in as low as £407 with checked luggage included.”

Open-jaw flight routes

“If you’re keen to maximise your holiday, look out for open-jaw and multi-stop routes,” Jack reveals. “Flying into one city and out of another, open-jaw routes can often save you both time and money – especially if you’re planning to travel around while you’re away. For example, if you’d like to visit San Diego and drive through California, you’ll quickly notice that return flights to San Diego can be quite expensive. Flights to San Francisco, a bigger transport hub, are often much more competitively priced. Instead of booking a return trip to San Diego, consider booking an open-jaw trip into San Diego and departing from San Francisco. Your overall fare will work out cheaper and you’ll save time by not having to retrace your path to catch your flight home.”

Fly to nearby airports and travel a different way to your destination

“In some countries, it's common to travel to/from a neighbouring country with cheaper flights, e.g. Munich or Vienna for Prague,” explains Katy. “If you want to save money, always check out big cities that are only a few hours away. Within Europe, you can always catch a quick train over. In the US, you can make it part of the road trip. This is also a good tip for trips in Asia, where some of the most popular destinations, like Bali, are often £300+ more expensive to reach than cities like Jakarta, Bangkok or Singapore. You can then pick up a cheap flight from a local low-cost carrier to reach the place you want for much less than with a single booking.”

Arrange layovers at the airline’s national hub

“When flying long-haul, most major carriers will stop at their national hub for a layover. With Turkish Airlines there’s normally a stop in Istanbul, Air France will stop in Paris, KLM in Amsterdam, and so on,” Jack admits. “Many of these flagship carriers are also incentivised by their host country to drive local tourism by setting their fare rules so that it's easy to extend a stopover from a few hours to a two-in-one holiday and see two destinations for the price of one flight. To do this, simply take a standard return flight search and change it into a multi-city search. While flying from Manchester to Sydney with Singapore Airlines, for example, extending a stopover in Singapore to two nights won’t increase the total cost of the flights – meaning you’ve just added a city break to your holiday Down Under at no extra cost.”

What's your top hack for getting cheap last-minute flights?

“It’s well known that last-minute deals are a thing of the past – no longer can you show up to the airport and get a cheap flight to paradise,” Jack tells us. “But there is one exception to this rule – charter airlines. These are airlines that don’t usually sell individual flight tickets – they’re often operated by holiday companies that bank on filling up the planes with package-holiday customers. When there’s leftover capacity, these companies will often sell flight-only tickets at a vast discount, with most flights going on sale between one and three weeks before the flight. In the UK, TUI lowers prices on charter flights more than any other airline, and actually has a specific page on its website where you can see its lowest-priced flights. These are nearly always last-minute deals, but they can be priced at half of what you’d pay with another carrier.”