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Every time you book a plane ticket, one thing remains consistent: Whether you're paying cash or redeeming points, you want to find the best deal.
Luckily, there are a few creative techniques for finding cheap airfare, but the right method depends on what you're looking for. Do you know where you want to go, and are you searching for the cheapest flight to get there? Or do you want to snag an elusive mistake fare to serve as a starting point for planning your vacation?
Here's a complete guide to finding cheap airfare when paying in cash and miles, including tips for spotting mistake fares.
How To Find Cheap Airfare When You Know Where You Want To Go
If you know where you want to go, you shouldn't focus on finding a mistake fare. Odds are, you won't be able to find the needle in the haystack that works for your desired airports or dates. Instead, you should work to find cheap airfare, regardless of whether you're paying in cash or using points and miles to book an award ticket.
Here are a few of our favorite tools for finding cheap fares.
Use a flight search engine if paying cash
There are more flight search engines than we can count. My favorite is Google Flights, but every traveler has a preference. Using a flight search engine allows you to compare multiple airlines, dates, times, and routes until you find the best deal.
Let's say I want to book a trip from Charlotte (CLT) to Amsterdam (AMS) this December. In Google Flights, I can enter my departure and arrival airports, dates, desired cabin, and number of passengers. When I click “Search,” I can view routes operated by airlines in each major alliance. I can then filter by the number of stops, the operating airline, the number of bags, price, departure or arrival time, connecting airports, duration, and more.
To help you identify if it's a good deal, Google Flights will show you the price history for this route. If the prices are higher than you'd like, you can click on “Date grid” to see how the price would change if you move your departure or return date by a few days. For the above route, I could save $40 by flying back to Charlotte on December 4 rather than December 5.
The date grid is also helpful for identifying availability. Sometimes an airline serves a route only on certain days of the week. For example, below is the date grid for a non-stop flight between Medellín (MDE) and Aruba (AUA). If I searched for a flight departing on July 28, I might think there isn't a non-stop option. However, the date grid shows which dates are open and the cost variation between them.
Use an award search tool if booking award tickets
If you want to redeem rewards for your ticket, you'll follow a similar process. However, the tools are different. Rather than logging in to a dozen different airline loyalty programs and keeping a spreadsheet of active transfer bonuses, you can use an award search tool to simplify the process.
There are many tools available, but Point.me and PointsYeah are two of my favorites. These tools essentially work the same way as Google Flights, but instead of displaying cash fares, they show the cost of a ticket in points and miles — and they factor in transfer bonuses.
For instance, using the same Amsterdam example as above, PointsYeah shows me several options for booking flights with points and miles. And even with a free account, you can run unlimited flight searches covering up to four days at a time.
Just note that these programs can't search every loyalty program out there, so they should be used as just one piece of the puzzle.
For advanced award travelers, a tool like Seats.aero can level up your search. For instance, I can perform a live award search for the same route (CLT to AMS) to see real-time award seat availability. However, you should always confirm availability directly with the airline before transferring your points, as Seats.aero notes that its results can occasionally differ from the airline's inventory.
I can also filter by cabin — the cheapest business-class seat for my dates is 57,500 AAdvantage miles, booked through American Airlines and operated on an itinerary operated by American Airlines and British Airways. However, it transits through London, which means taxes and fees are high — $759.40 each way.
Everyone has their preferences, but I'd rather pay 88,000 United MileagePlus miles and just $21.80 in taxes and fees for a business-class seat. Sure, I'm paying 30,500 more miles, but I'm saving $737.60. If my goal is cheap airfare, nearly $1,500 round-trip savings is likely worth the extra miles.
You can register for a Seats.aero Pro plan for more features, such as expanded searches and advanced functionality.
General tips for finding cheap fares
Having the right tools at your disposal makes finding cheap airfare relatively simple. However, even with every subscription service out there, you might not find a cheap flight right away. Creativity and flexibility are the keys to finding cheap international flights on both full-service and budget airlines. You can often save hundreds of dollars by simply adjusting your dates, checking alternative airports, or booking a multi-city or open-jaw itinerary.
Another fantastic and underrated way to see more of the world for less is to add a stopover to your flight. A stopover allows you to spend some time (normally a few days) in an airline's hub before going to your final destination. I booked a stopover in Singapore on a Singapore Airlines award flight from Melbourne (MEL) to Istanbul (IST). It didn't cost any more, and I was able to explore Singapore for a few days before heading to Istanbul. Some airlines, including Turkish Airlines and Etihad, even provide complimentary hotel stays on eligible stopover itineraries.
Similarly, many airlines, like Air France and Avianca, offer periodic award sales to help you save on flights. These sales can cut prices by 25% or more, so they are worth looking into if you want to stretch your miles. And remember, if you don't like the price you see, you can set an alert and wait for prices to decrease.
This is true for both paid and award tickets. Although there's no guarantee, it can pay off to not book the first ticket you see. I've done this before and saved hundreds of dollars or thousands of miles on my ticket. As soon as you get the notification that the price has decreased, you can complete the booking.
How To Book Mistake Fares When Your Destination Is Flexible
If you don't know where you want to go, you can let the fares guide you. This is where mistake fares come in.
Mistake fares are rare but highly sought after by travelers looking for a good deal. True mistake fares are rare and often disappear quickly once the airline identifies the error. Unfortunately, the airline doesn't always honor these deals and can cancel your ticket.
But sometimes you can successfully book a mistake fare and snag a round-trip business-class ticket for $800 when it normally costs $5,000, or a long-haul economy flight for $200 when it should cost $1,000.
The same can happen when paying with miles. Maybe the airline accidentally dropped some zeroes and listed a business-class ticket for 15,000 miles when it should've cost 150,000 miles. Or 25,400 miles round trip to Australia instead of 100,000+ round trip — as we recently saw from Delta.
However, the process for finding a mistake fare is similar to spotting a deeply discounted (but intended) ticket.
Thrifty Traveler
Thrifty Traveler is a fantastic resource for finding deals and mistake fares. In my experience, Thrifty Traveler is often the first subscription service to notify users about great deals. Thrifty Traveler deals have included 48,000 miles for Delta One to Europe, 69,000 miles for business class from Los Angeles to Tahiti, or $377 flights to Japan.
The free plan offers limited deal alerts for both domestic and international flights from 200-plus U.S. and Canadian departure airports. However, you'll only be notified about deals in economy, and you'll receive the deal information 24 hours after premium users. When dealing with mistake fares, they might be sold out or resolved by the time you'd get the alert.
The Thrifty Traveler premium plan costs $129.99 per year and includes most features you care about — instant deals on domestic and international flights, the ability to filter deals by destination regions, deals on business- and first-class fares, points and miles award alerts, and text message alerts.
The Premium+ plan is $189.99 per year and includes alerts for hotels bookable with points and hotel suggestions within flight deal alerts.
If you're on the fence about subscribing, you can get a full refund if you aren't satisfied with the service within 100 days of subscribing.
Dollar Flight Club
Dollar Flight Club is one of the most popular resources for finding flight deals. The process is simple: make an account, select your home airports and dream travel destinations, and receive an alert when those flights go on sale. The free membership tier allows you to get notified of up to three deals on domestic economy flights each week from a single departure airport.
If you want access to even more deals, you can subscribe to a Dollar Flight Club premium plan.
- Premium ($69 per year): Daily alerts for domestic and international flight deals, plus the ability to track up to four departure airports, and 10 dream destinations.
- Premium+ ($99 per year): Everything included with Premium, plus business-class alerts, and exclusive DFC member-only deals.
Your success with Dollar Flight Club will be heavily dependent on your departure airport. If you live near a small regional airport, you might not receive as many alerts as someone living near a major hub. However, mistake fares can happen anywhere at any time, so it's still worth considering.
Other mistake fare tools
There are tons of resources for getting notified about mistake fares or sales. Dollar Flight Club and Thrifty Traveler are two great ones, but here's an overview of a few more:
- Straight to the Points: Premium award availability and flight deals to popular international destinations
- Going (formerly Scott's Cheap Flights): Track specific trips or receive alerts about major price drops and mistake fares from selected departure airports.
- Secret Flying: Browse worldwide airfare deals and mistake fares, with optional alerts.
- The Flight Deal/Fare Deal Alert: Deals from a handful of U.S. airports to destinations worldwide.
Each service offers flight-deal alerts, but geographic coverage, cabin options, pricing, and notification speed vary. Most services offer a free version, so you can sign up for a handful to see which one you like best before subscribing.
General tips for booking mistake fares
- Book immediately, plan later. If you spot a mistake fare, you need to book it immediately. An airline won't keep a 90% discount around for very long, so you should book it as quickly as possible and plan the rest of your trip later. This isn't a normal sale that might last for days or weeks.
- 24-hour free cancellation. For flights covered by U.S. rules and booked directly with the airline at least seven days before departure, you’ll generally have either a 24-hour free-cancellation window or the option to hold the fare for 24 hours. Check the airline’s policy before booking, since it isn’t required to offer both.
- Airlines may cancel error fares. Airlines may cancel tickets booked at an obvious mistake fare. For itineraries covered by U.S. consumer-protection rules, the airline must refund the ticket and may also be required to reimburse reasonable, documented expenses incurred because you relied on the booking. Rules elsewhere vary, so it’s still wise to avoid making nonrefundable plans — like accommodations or excursions — until you're confident the ticket will be honored.
Unless you're extremely travel savvy — or extremely lucky — you won't find the mistake fare yourself. If you want to improve your chances of being able to book dirt-cheap flights, consider subscribing to one of the tools we listed above. Many of these sites have staff and resources dedicated to scouring the internet for mistake fares, so they can likely find a deal before you can.
Related: How To Use Thrifty Traveler Premium Instant Alerts To Score Unicorn Awards and Mistake Fares
Bottom Line
Airfare doesn't need to cost a fortune. With the right tools in your pocket, you can easily book cheap flights for almost anywhere you want to go. And remember: if you subscribe to any of the tools mentioned, make sure to check a shopping portal to earn bonus points on your purchase.
For instance, at the time of writing, Rove offered 27.6X miles per $1 spent on Dollar Flight Club purchases and 17.3X miles per $1 spent on Going purchases. If you're going to spend $100 on an annual membership, you might as well earn a few thousand transferable points in the process.
