Looking to grab cheap flight to France and find free things to do in Paris? How to get the cheapest route to Budapest? Cheap flights are the answer. 

Air travel prices have changed the way in which many of us take vacations and gone are the days of package deals thanks to the number of people who prefer to manage each part of the booking themselves. In order to do this cost effectively, it is important that you understand exactly how to get the cheapest flights, and where to get them. Whether you are looking for a good deal on flight to Canada, France, Japan or Dubai, here is the process you should follow to ensure that you get the lowest fares.

Early Bird Catches The Flight

The first thing that should be noted is how far in advance you book your flights. Contrary to popular belief, booking last minute doesn’t always save you money and you are far better booking in advance. Flight tickets generally go on sale 10 months ahead of time, so if you already know where you want to go, you should be on your marks when the flight tickets go live.

Websites

The only websites which you should be checking to grab cheap flights are Skyscanner and Momondo. These websites are aggregators which scour the internet for the best prices either directly from the airline or from third party sites. I like these sites a lot because they have a ton of filters which you can use to make sure that you get exactly the right flight at the very best price. By all means check with the airline directly but it is highly unlikely that you’ll find any cheaper flight prices, unless of course you have a loyalty card with the airline.

Consider Connecting

Many view connecting flights as a problem but they can actually wind up saving you a great deal of money. In many cases a connecting flight may only be a couple of hours longer in terms of travel time, than a direct flight, yet they are significantly cheaper. For example just last year I flew from Mexico City to London for $500 with a journey time of 16 hours thanks to a  connection in JFK. The direct flight for the same destination was $985 and the journey time was 12 hours. The idea of getting a flight almost half price, with the only sacrifice being four hours of my time, was an absolute no brainer so make sure that you also look for connecting flights.

Tricks

A great trick to use if you are looking for flights which are leaving from another country, is to trick the website into thinking that you are in that nation. As strange as it sounds, I can get Avianca flights cheaper if the airline thinks I am in Colombia, than if I were to book from the USA. To appear as though you are in another country, you simply need to use a VPN which will give you an IP address from your selected country. This doesn’t work all of the time but it is certainly worth trying when booking your flights.

Follow these steps and you can count on the cheapest flight possible for your next trip.