For the past… Thirty years or so the “round trip” option has been the one constant in my flight searches. Truth be told, I’d always wondered who these people were who bought one way tickets. People who were moving I suppose? Vagrants (read: Democrats)? Flipping that option, and flipping that option permanently struck a chord with me. More than the one way ticket was the knowledge that I wouldn’t be coming back and that all of my tickets would now be one way. I wouldn’t be coming back anywhere.
There are a thousand blogs about cheap flights and the best way to travel. I hate to break it to you, but I’m not about to blow the doors off the travel industry. I will tell you where I messed up and I’ll tell you about my favorite pages.
First of all, the rigidity in most flight searches really pisses me off. And I hope it pisses you off. What if I want to browse every flight leaving my home airport today? It’s annoying as hell to try to do that! Come on travel industry! Where’s your sense of adventure? Things have improved, though. SkyScanner, Kayak and Google Flights have become some of my staples.
SkyScanner tends to be my opener. They have a great feature that allows you to search for flights across an entire month and across all destinations. It’s not perfect, mind you. The results are dependent on their engine having swept across something you’re looking for. This means the further out you are looking the less likely you are to get immediate results. But they can always find them once you select your dates (like everyone). My use for SkyScanner has been to find the cheapest cities I can visit on side trips from cities I’m visiting longer term. It excels at that.
Most of you are probably familiar with Kayak by now. To make a long story short Kayak is the way to go if you have a slightly tighter idea about when you need to go. I use Kayak when I want to avail myself of the plus or minus three days travel dates
Google Flights. It’s Google, it’s got a pretty map of destinations and costs… What more do you want?
Now you should know this by now. These flight search pages are for-profit enterprises. Many of them get kickbacks for booking flights and that gets baked into the price. Once you have found yourself a good deal… Do yourself a favor and just head over to the airline’s page to book the actual flight. It’s not a lottery win but you can save a couple bucks.
Pretty direct these days. But there are some stupid mistakes to avoid. If you find yourself in my situation where you are suddenly transitioning from a lifetime of weekend warrior…ing… to only buying one way tickets. Don’t get into your own head! My price expectations were extremely anchored (Not to go all MBA D-bag on you) towards the realm of booking round trip flights. When I found a flight to Prague for $700 I thought it was a fucking awesome deal. Let’s upgrade that shit to first class ASAP!
Of course as I was thinking about it the next day (and after I’d sobered up… Don’t plan travel while drinking. That goes without saying, right?) I realized the flight only seemed like a good deal because I was so used to browsing prices that were double what I was now looking for. Obvious now… But if you’re turning into a nomad remember, that simple act will automatically cut your air fares in half.
I’ll leave you with this…anything over four hours, pay for the upgrades. You might regret the money when you book but you’ll definitely regret the ten hours of misery you experience when you don’t. If that’s something you’re absolutely not able to do then definitely pay a visit to SeatGuru. It has great resources to determine the best seats on any flight and if you use it wisely you can fake your way into a business class experience while still in economy.
The Bottom Line – What You Need to Book Great Flights
