Episode 15: How to Use Flight Search Aggregators to Find Best Flight Deals

In this short episode I just wanted to quickly go over a my favorite search aggregator sites when you're searching for flights in terms of dollar value, and again this isn't a travel hacking thing just more as a helpful tool and the concepts in finding cheaper flights. 

Now living in Hawaii having lived in Maui, a big Island, a lot of flights to get for me to get to anywhere are actually quite expensive. I don't use points then if I pay with dollars then definitely I'm going to be searching for the lowest price possible out there. Now I'm going to show you a couple examples. 

I still like Google Flights. And this has shown up here. But remember that you when you do your flight searches that you can't just search with one site you have to search for the multiple sites but I can also understand how that can get really tiring because it's just hundreds and hundreds of airline sites out there to find the best prices. 

I know there are the the bigger sites that are a lot more popular like Expedia, Travelocity, and Kayak. But I actually don't use any of them. I found that their prices sometimes are a lot higher. But it doesn't hurt to check if you have the time to do so. 

Google Flights, Momondo, and Skyscanner

The three sites that I definitely use is Google Flights, Momondo, and then Skyscanner. These three sites are the main sites that I basically use to search for flights and then from that point on then I would go further onwards and search on airline sites specifically because sometimes there's unadvertised airline fares. 

Google Flights as an example I search from Maui to San Salvador and for March 8th of next year. And as you can see the cheapest flight is five hundred and seventy eight but notice the twenty five hours in two stops. Up to six ninety nine and then the flight time is now only fifteen hours and twenty two minutes. But it's unavoidable for people in Hawaii. If they want to go to Central or South America, there's always going to be usually two stops so it's dreadful.

But don't forget that this is just coach. If you're someone that wants a bit more comfort, it doesn't hurt to check out to see if maybe there's a business class fair and look not that way by much. Eighteen hours and twenty five minutes to fly in business class with United. Usually it's going to be in their first class cabin because it's marked as a first class flight United. It's not going to be flat beds but at least you have much more leg room and meal services, but yeah comparing it between the economy class the sixty ninety nine with American and along with United here, right. We are not going to look at this flight because it's too long. It's not as comparable. But if you move it to the business class flight. It's ONLY a hundred dollars more. Like I said a lot of people forget to bother checking business class. They only focus on coach thinking that business class is always expensive, but that is not always the case. Doesn't hurt to just sneak a peek at business class fairs.  

Why I Live Using Momondo to Search for Flights

That being said Momondo is really one of my favorite sites to search for flights because they don't just include the main carrier airline sites and also popular search aggregators they include all these little flight agencies that I've never heard of before. But they just include them there and sometimes you can win out with very cheap tickets. I did an example of Chicago to Paris for November 8th to November 15th. This was one of the searches I'd done with one of my clients, but I'm just doing an arbitrary one right now. And as you can see the cheapest one is five eighty seven with Turkish Airlines, most likely that one stop is via through Istanbul. And then here's a nonstop flight with Chicago obviously with United since Chicago or D.S. is their hub to Paris at 6:21 and as you can notice this searchers here are from these really unknown websites that sell these tickets such as City Air, Explorer Trip and Go to Gate.

I have never really heard of any of these but you can click on this to get in-depth details of the outbound return flights along with the twenty two different booking sites that offer this ticket. That is pretty much I was showing you how to use Momondo. They also have a lot of search filters on the left side and they conveniently show you estimated prices for the immediate two weeks around the dates that you choose. 

Skyscanner is the other one. I won't waste my time showing you guys how to do that. It's pretty self-explanatory there. And then you’ll also find these other small niche sites that tell you when there's going to be air fares. From time to time airline sites make mistakes put in a fare that's really cheap and then what happens is a lot of people will find out about it and book it. More than eighty ninety percent of time the airlines will honor it. Sometimes they will not and what they'll do is they’ll revoke the airfare. And then perhaps give something else in terms of compensation but for the most part airfares go out pretty quickly.

Subscribing to Cheap Flight Newsletters

I like to use sites such as Fly 4 Free where you can sign up for the newsletter list and it will tell you or give you updates in case in the area that you are or wherever the area that you want to travel to as an airfare, and some current ones as of August 2016 flying nonstop between L.A. to Tokyo roundtrip for three hundred eighty six dollars. That's very much a great deal. Or flying from country Georgia to London round trip for fifty pounds.  I mean amazing deals but these deals go away very fast. That's why I encourage you guys. If you ever want to catch a random airfare to definitely subscribe with sites such as Fly 4 Free to find these amazing deals.

I really hope that this helped you guys search for flights normally for the dollar values and also just to keep in mind that sometimes business class fares are as close to the coach fare, do not overlook that opportunity. 

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Which flight search website do you use?

Just comment and let me know if you guys have any questions that you want me to address. 

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If you missed, Episode 14: Figuring Out Which Plane You Will Fly In

Follow me @hustletoparadise to stay up to date on future episodes of Travel Hacking with Hustle to Paradise.

(Introduction photo courtesy of Pro Image Photography found on Unsplash)