One question we are often asked is “How do you do with transportation?” In this article, we talk a little about airline tickets, tools and techniques that we use to choose the deal that best fits the assumptions of our trip, especially the fact that it is a low-cost trip.
“And how do you find cheap airline tickets?” The answer to that question could well be as simple as “go to site X, do a search, sort the results by price, and make the purchase,” but unfortunately it is not the case.
What we usually do is start the search in the famous http://flights.google.com because this site concentrates most of the existing flight options. When entering the site, we enter the origin, the destination, set up for “one-way flight” and we fire the search.
Initially, we do not set a date, as one of the interesting tools of the site is the possibility of viewing a list of prices graphically. This helps a lot in decision making.
The “Price graph” option allows you to see the passage cost variation over time.
In the above example, it’s easy to see which dates are best (cheaper) to travel. It is clear that the more flexible your dates, the more likely you are to get a cheap flight.
Another point to note is the price of flights within Europe. In general, traveling with companies like Ryanair is usually extremely attractive in terms of price. However, it is important to be aware of the conditions, especially with regard to the luggage limits. Ryanair is very cheap when the passenger has only one hand luggage. See how prices vary:
In other words: a bag of 20kg (20kg Check-in Bag), if purchased along with the ticket, increases the total cost by € 25, i.e. our € 12 ticket has already passed to € 37, which is a price within the average for other companies as well.
For this reason, we learned not to believe in the first result that is shown when we do the initial search.
One hint: when you have a lot of luggage, it might be much cheaper to travel by land (train and bus, for example). But that’s a subject for another article. 😉
When we select a candidate ticket, we are directed to the website of the chosen company and only then do we know the final price.
It is common that the browser has several tabs open, each one with a flight possibility, so we can only define where to buy.
Google Flights also provides a chart where you can check whether the values being used by airlines today are below, above or within the average flight price for the selected origin and destination. The analysis takes into account the values of the last 12 months and may not be available for some flights.
In the image above, Google says prices are currently below average. That is, today would be a good day to buy this ticket.
It should be noted that airfares vary widely, sometimes within the same day. If you make an inquiry and are terrified about the prices, check the same flight the next day.
Once again it is clear that the best option to get cheap tickets is to have flexible dates.
One last item that we always try to put into practice is to buy in advance. In general, the more distant your trip is, the better the chances of getting better prices.
So, did you find this article useful? Got any questions? Feel free to add your comment below or contact us using the ‘contact us’ form!