How to Find Cheapest International Flights Online?

We’ve tried it!  We’ve done it all.  If you want to know how to find cheapest international flights, or even local flights, there are several recommendations I’ve presented below for you to try. Read everything, pick some and see if it works. Those are all based on experience and real time booking.

Aside from my own experience, I have also consolidated ideas posted online from various travel- related blogs  expressing ideas like how to find cheapest international flights online, how to find deals in international flights, the best way to find cheapest international and local flights, and other articles related to booking a flight online  that aims to save some amount.

Though it’s a lot confusing how this booking system works, sometimes there is no consistent result when we do the search using different strategies. But if you really master just one trick how to find cheapest international flights,   you could save a lot of money on your future travels.

Before we move on to the suggested steps, it is quite necessary to understand how airlines tag their seats. We have to know how things work on the inside so that we can make a necessary play on the outside being a traveler or one of their future clients. Just like soldiers, it is vital to know the terrain before doing the assault.

Though obviously, we are not having a war with airline companies and travel agencies, knowing all their hocus-focus kind of game when selling flights is an advantage to save some amount of money. That I thought is the most important part of the game to really nail the idea how to find cheapest international flights. And you should do it if you are moving from country to country as a regular traveler.

So, how Airline Companies and Travel Agencies priced their flights online?

There is no such thing as fixed flight price if you book a flight online.  Everything changes every minute and every day. That’s overly dynamic.  It does not really matter if a single seat going to same country of destination was previously sold at $500 and only $300 on the next journey. What matters is they must hit the whole flight’s target revenue and they have to consider many things.

Example, if the business seats are selling extremely fast at higher rates, they could lower the price on selected seats at the economy just to bring passengers in. If there are massive booking on destinations where the overall flight cost is low, it means huge revenue and they could lower the price. Airlines must always consider their overall expenses and weight it with how much they can gain to determine the price. Since things are changing unpredictably, it also affects how they priced airline seats.

Knowing how to find cheapest international and local flights really needs a kind of deep understanding how airline companies and online travel agencies do that kind of tricky game of selling airline tickets. Now that you have the idea, any time of the day, you could hunt the cheapest flight for your next travel.  But before that, you have to understand also how they manipulate the internet when selling airline tickets.

How  each flight price changes is also based on quite a lot of different factors that Airline companies and travel agencies are keep tracking online. They must be on the watch what’s going on in the travel marketplace and play with the current trend beyond everyone’s knowledge.

The following are the factors that affect how airline companies and travel agencies selling travel-related products automatically change flight prices to stay away from losing end and hit the overall target revenue for every specific flight they sell.
Look! These are the things that you might never have imagined possible but it’s all true.

1.    Client's Financial Capability

Yes, flight prices are sometimes based on the client’s financial capability. For example, if you are rich and price is not at all an issue, you might purchase a certain flight right away without needing to lessen your travel cost. If this detail is confirmed, you could be seeing flight prices at higher rates every time you book a flight. And if you do purchase, that means profit.

It is obvious that Airline Companies and Travel Agencies online are making their best to make money and just never care for your pocket. If you are careless or unaware, you could be spending money unnecessarily to book a flight that you can get for almost 30% lesser than how much you might have paid for.  But how did they know that?

Cookies!

That’s how websites selling flight tickets and hotels rooms are spying on you. A cookie is a small file which will be automatically encrypted into your phone or computer browser every time you browse a website. You can never see it unless you know how to. But today, most websites will ask some kind of permission that they are going to plant a cookie into your browser. If you clicked yes, there you go. But that’s how things works online, you privacy is always at stake.

You become under their watch and they’re going to steal all your details such as name, address, phone number, location, browsing history, online purchase history, type of gadget used to access the internet, credit card, and above all, your IP address. Everything will be taken from your browsing activity and history and shall be used against you in the future.

That’s how your information is manipulated online. If you are a traveler, all of those details could somehow affect the flight prices that you can see, every time you book whether local or international flights.

To know if you are financially capable of purchasing flights at higher price, they have to consider your type of gadget used; online purchase history and your location. Those combinations could be enough to identify what class you belong.

For example, it shows in your browsing history that about three months ago, you’ve purchased a travel gadget worth $800 from amazon.com and a few weeks ago; you’ve purchase an international flight to Tokyo, Japan. As of the time you are browsing the web to book a flight, you are currently located at one of Japan’s most expensive hotels and you are using an apple tablet.

What does it mean to them?

You are a hot prospect for higher flight price. This happens most of the time for International flights where seats are sold at higher price.  Yes, if you are rich, you could end up buying flight prices designed for rich people like you.

2.    Product  and Time Scarcity Sales Strategy

This is another reason why flight prices changes so quickly just for you to take action. All they want is your money. This also proves that flight prices are not fixed at  a single and reasonable cost.  If you’ve tried booking a flight online and saw that popping red notification that says “only 2 seats available at this discounted price” or anything that urges you to take action, that’s what I mean.

For time scarcity, you might see a timer running down with only 2 minutes left and the price changes to higher rates. If you don’t take action right away, you will be losing the cheapest price they offer and you must be paying higher prices. That’s not true.
Everything is just a trick. 

In fact, the moment you’ve purchased that flight, the same notification will appear again to anyone opening the same website’s page, seeing the same flight price at the same time from different locations.  It seems like you grabbed the best discounted price but in reality you don’t.

3.    Supply and Demand

In economics, the law of supply and demand determines how a certain product or commodity is tag so as with airline seats. With consumable goods, if the supply is low at constant demand the price must be high. The two must be in indirect proportion with each other or must be operating at opposite angles. If the supply is plenty enough at constant demand, the price must drop lower than normal.

However, with airline seats of flight prices, it does the opposite.  If the demand is high the price must also be high, regardless of the availability of supply (current available flights and seats) knowing that there is no other option for passengers to take if their travel is highly necessary. They have to buy flights. And that’s what airline companies and travel agencies are capitalizing to make more money.

Flight demands happen when big events are about to occur or to be held in a particular country or city, where people from neighboring places might also visit.  The best example to mention is SEA GAMES in 2019, where a lot of people from Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam Laos, Indonesia other countries in South East Asia were all flying to the Philippines to support their athletes and witness the event live.

4.    Season

Flight price also changes with season due to the supply and demand factor. There are times within the calendar year, where both International and local terminals are flocked with travelers. People are going back to their native lands to stay with their loved ones for a couple of weeks, going for vacation after long years of living away from home and that obviously occur during the month of December.

In the Philippines, local occasions like yearly festival or (fiesta) could pull a lot of tourist and local travelers to the host cities to witness the said event. Just like during the month of January in Cebu, a Sinolog Festival is highly anticipated by the locals. During that month, Cebu Pacific flights from Davao and Manila must undergo some amount of scarcity even the flight price is high.

5.    Booking a Flight Early

This one is very basic and ridiculous. If you book a flight early, for example one month ahead, you must be able to buy a specific seat inside an airplane that’s still and going to be sold many times until your turn comes. Think about it. Imagine buying a car from one car company and paid the whole thing in full but you must wait for the right time to own it while they’re also offering it for rentals to other clients. In short, they’re making money multiple times from that single seat before you can use it. That’s the reason why you might really get it cheaper than normal.

6.    Time of the Day when Booking a Flight

Flight prices online could also change when no one else is browsing that website that sells airline tickets. When there is no potential sale due to absence of engagement from the prospected clients, some of the travel sites lower the price down and show a highly discounted rate. So with this, sometimes the best time to book a flight is at an early dawn when everyone is still asleep.

7.    Country

Flight prices also change with countries.  If you look for cheapest international flights, and if you are currently located in New York City USA, you could have been having flights prices at higher rates. But if another person is also booking the same flight from country like Haiti, he or she must get that flight lower than what you are going to pay, exactly the same seat.

This is due to the fact that airline companies and online travel agents consider the country’s economic status to identify flight prices. Meaning, if the country’s economy is struggling, people can’t simply buy expensive flights or even the normal flight price for a certain local or International travel.

8.    Promo and Discounts

Most of the time, airline companies and online travel agencies offer discounts and promos for a certain flight within a given period of time. Meaning, they have to lower the prices beyond normal. A flight seat tag at $150 could be available online at $120 or lower.

This is just to pull more passengers and make huge money later. Just like giving the passengers more value in the beginning and make money by volume and frequency. Frequency means, how many times a single airplane has took off back and forth carrying hundreds of passengers (volume) due to the discounted flight price they offered.
What I’ve said above are just a few.

There are still more that I’ve failed to mention. But those are already enough idea to know how to play with Airline companies and travel agencies selling flights online to land with cheap airline flight during your search. So, here are the things that you need to do to find the cheapest International and even local flights for your next travel:

1. Use Incognito mode of your browser

Now that you know that they’re spying on you, you have to put some guard so they won’t be able to track your activity and details. Flight price also increases in just a minute if you do the search over and over again. Meaning, you are really in great need to have that flight, the reason why you do the search more than once or you’ve stayed on that page for some time.

You must have a reason and you might be in you highest level of buying mode.  By scaring you that it might get even higher if you’ll not take action, you might end up pulling your credit card quickly.

So, don’t be afraid. When booking a flight, just use the private browsing feature of Google chrome or Firefox. That’s how to handle cookies. If you do, you might see flight prices at regular rates during that time of the day. But still it keeps on changing based on many different factors.

If you are using Google Chrome or Safari browser, you can just go to Command (Control if using PC), Shift “N.” For IE and Firefox, just hit Command (Control if using PC) and Shift “P.” This opens a new browser window beyond the eyes of cookies encrypted in your old browser and you won’t be tracked. For old version of Safari browser, just click Safari and select the private browsing visible in the menu bar.

Each time you open a new incognito window, your cookies are reset. Always have a clean browser when doing a search for flight online and never refresh the browser and do the same search. You have to open a new window so you might appear as a new client searching for a flight in the eyes of those cookies hiding in your browser.

Another strategy to battle with cookies and to cheat a bit with airline companies and online travel agencies that are constantly spying on you is to use VPN or Virtual Private Network when booking a flight.  Since they consider location to know whether or not you are a hot prospect for high price tickets, you can change location using VPN and pretend to be located somewhere else.

If you are staying in Singapore for example and you want to book a flight to Canada, you can hide your location with VPN and use locations like Philippines to get flight prices to Canada based on Philippine economic status, which might be a lot lower compared to Singapore. That’s how VPN works when booking a flight.

2. Use the right flight search engine

First, we have to discuss what flight search engines are so we might be able to identify which one is best. Imagine Google when you do search for something, if you type a certain keyword on Google’s search box, it will then give you list of websites or online content relevant to your query hoping that it serves you the best.

The same thing when searching for a flight online, you have to lend unto the power of flight search engines to give you the best according to you budget or availability.

Now, there are hundreds or maybe thousands of flight search engines or flight aggregator sites claiming to be the best. How to pick the right one might also be confusing and troublesome. Actually you can only personally know it if you compare each of them based on results.

But don’t do it. It takes a lot of time and you could end up landing on a lot of high priced flights due to the cookies in your browser that’s trying to cheat on you. If you do clearing of cookies and history all the time, you might end up crying, the whole day searching flights without any significant result.

The best flight search engine based on experience is Jetradar. If you use the flight search box above, that’s a customized Jetradar flight search engine designed to fit on this website. But why Jetradar?

Here’s why:

If your concern is really to find the cheapest international or maybe local flights, you have to tap into networks of travel agents online catering budget airlines or low cost airlines. No better than that if your objective is to save money. IF you just book a flight without knowing the presence of budget airlines, you might end up paying expensive flight paying other stuff that you don’t need during your travel.

Now, Jetradar has an access to a database of 728 airline companies and online travel agencies including hundreds of budget airlines operating around the globe, which are not accessible using other flight search engines. Yes, sometimes there are flights that Jetradar shows which are not visible with Expedia, Kayak, Momondo, Farecompare, Sky scanner, and even with Google flights. I just don’t know why but I’ve noticed that many times.

Note that those flights search engines mentioned above are the giants in the industry and are used to have inflated flight cost for every flight rate they show in your search result.  However, sometimes, it might be right to conclude that no single search engine is consistently perfect. Though we suggest Jetradar, but it doesn't mean that it always gives you the perfect and consistent cheapest flight 100% of the time.

3. Pick the best day to travel

If you have enough time to prepare, better plan your travel. You might book a flight ahead. While some travelers said that there are best days to book a flight in a week, which they said Tuesday, it is just a baseless claim and it could never guarantee of finding cheapest international flights for example. 

The right thing to do is to map all the available flights in a month, make a list of it and pick the best price that suits your budget. You have to check the available flights from tomorrow until the last day that you are allowed to travel. If you plan ahead, you can certainly find great prices.

4. Generate Points to Travel Free

The cheapest flight you can book is free, and the easiest way to do that is with points. If you don't have any, don't fret – signing up for just one travel rewards credit card and hitting the minimum spend can land you a major points bonus, often enough for a free flight!

If you are a regular traveler, you can capitalize on the point system offered by some airlines. Every time you book a flight and purchase some of the product during the flight, you could earn some points. In the long run, points could accumulate and could free one of your future travels.  You can also do this by signing up with travel rewards credit card. By just having a minimum spend, you could have enough points to enjoy a trip for free.

5. Book a flight with Budget Airlines

 As said above, there is no better way to find cheap flight than booking a flight with budget airlines. What you are going to pay with budget airlines is only the flight cost. All extras are eliminated. So what are those?  With budget airlines, you don’t have to pay for the meals. You have to buy it of you need. If you are good in sleeping onboard the plane in s 12 hours travel, then budget airline must your best pick. Just go there, sit down, buckle yourself and sleep.

No drinks, no meals, no music and movies. Keep your legs tight because the space is too scanty and there is no way you can push your seat to lean on your back. Just pray that someone sitting beside you will also do the same. If he or she keeps going to the bathroom or keeps having a food next beside you, you must me disturbed. That’s how thing goes when flying with budget airlines. But of course that’s too cheap.

6. Hunt for flights offered at wrong price.

Sometimes airline companies post an airfare by mistake which lead to huge discount from the regular price tag. This happens due to currency conversion mistakes, technical glitches or could be just because of inevitable human error. Sometimes this is due to failure to upgrade their system that shows the right price the moment they often do changes. Cancelled flights also affects the individual seat prices which could lead to increase, but failure of the system to upgrade online could result to selling airline tickets at the wrong price.

7. Book layover flights

If you are traveling into a certain destination where you have to embark the plane two times at one booking, try booking it twice instead even with different airlines provided that the next plane must depart from the same terminal.

For example, if you are heading to the Philippines from the UK and you have a stopover in Dubai International Airport in UAE, better book a flight from UK to UAE and from UAE to the Philippines. That probably will cost a way cheaper than the other. But you have to be very careful with the time interval.

Do not book a connecting flight with only 2 to 3 hours a part.  The suggested time interval must be 6 hours above.  You have to note that you will be disembarking the plane and might transfer to other terminals. You cannot move that fast to the second plane inside the airport. Another thing is you have to consider the delay. So, having it six hours before the next flight is safe.

I remember one time when I was going home for vacation last 2016 from Oman. Since my home town is Davao City in the Philippines, I booked a connecting flight via Cebu Pacific from UAE to MLA and MLA to DVO with only 2 hours’ time in between. Onboard the plane at around 11:30 am, we’re still somewhere up above the sky and my next flight is 12:30 going to Davao City.

I only have 1 hour left. So when we finally landed and disembarked the plane, I run fast to the tube and rushed to the immigration for the immediate exit. Luckily, I was the one who reached the immigration and moved have my passport stamped. I did it before the huge crowed of passengers came, just following behind my back.

At that moment, I only have 20 minutes left. So I ran and ran again as fast I could and moved to the domestic terminal of NAIA terminal 3 in Manila. Unfortunately, I was not able to make it. I was no longer allowed since the boarding area is already closed. My flight to Davao City from Manila that cost me $74 was forfeited for “no show” (I was just late due to the delay of CebuPacific when we left the UAE). 

So, I bought another ticket for a flight at 6:30PM. To make a story short, I arrived home at exactly 11:00 in the evening. That was crazy! Lesson learned? Never book 2 connecting flights if only 2-3 hours apart. Note that when booking with layover flights, you can find much cheaper flight still with budget airlines. Just do a little search.

8. Pick the best place to travel at lesser cost.

If you have not decided where to go, you have a chance to pick the best place to stay at lesser travel cost. Think about that.  If you are currently staying in Thailand for weeks and you feel like moving to different place, you can check online and see what is the best place to go based on current flight prices. You might go to Boracay in the Philippines, Maldives Island and other tourist destinations. What to have in mind is to skip from places where you might be spending much of your money on travel.

9.    Book Flights at Once

If you already knew your whereabouts, better book a flight once. You could probably grab flight prices at lower price if you pay in bulk. For example, if you want to stay in 3 different destinations and you still have plenty of time   before you depart, better pay all flight once. That of course includes return ticket from your last destination.

It has been proven many times that you can certainly save some amount if you book ahead and pay at once. This is due to the fact that, when you do it later, if the time of booking is getting close to the travel date, flight prices must be a lot more expensive. So having it at one booking make some sense to save some amount.

10.    Check flights on local Airlines

Local airlines are sometime the best one to tap into to avail on the best flight price. Though, this is not applicable to search for cheap international flights, only local or domestic. Majority of the giant flight search engines don’t recognize small airlines if it is not listed in their network. While standard flight price are implemented across many airlines, these local carriers could offer a bit cheaper price unknown by many travelers. So, you must also consider checking them if available.

Now that I’ve already shared everything that I know regarding how to find cheapest international flights online, it’s now your role to familiarize each and pick which one do you think works for you. You have to try each and see if it really gives you the expected result.

Among the ideas that I mentioned above, I suggest doing some kind of combination. If you book a flight early like two months before the travel date and if you do the search using the right and best flight search engine with you browser in an incognito mode, I thought it would produce the best result.  You can even go and look for layover flights as also suggested just to apply everything.

You can also go to Google and search for more ideas how to find cheapest airline tickets when booking a flight online. Just type any of the following keywords as shown on the list below to let Google find the right content relevant to your query.

Here are the keywords that you may type into Google search bar to find the right content:

how to find lowcost international flights
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how to find deals on international flights
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But take note; there are hundreds or maybe thousands of articles online in travel niche talking the same topic. They are all competing with each other to position at Google’s first page to get notice and generate more readers. What Google will hand you over are those that Google believed to be the most relevant. But as some point, it does not work that way.

To find the right content, just like when searching for ways how to find the cheapest international or even local flights, you have to check also the inner page of Google search result because there are fresh contents that Google has not seen yet but it gives the right information.

If you are a traveler who wants to make money from your own booking, I suggest joining TravelPayout affiliate program and get paid every time you book a travel using your own affiliate link. That’s another way to save some amount. Click here to get access now