Where do we find our cheap flights?
In the internet age, information is everywhere. The problem with SO much information is that it can all get a bit murky. There are dozens if not hundreds of sites that can get you discounted flights, but most people just don’t know where to look. We’re going to tell you the 5 sites that we go to on a regular basis to find our cheap flights, and how you can follow along as well!
SecretFlying
Secret Flying is a great website to use because of it’s ease of search. They will pull sales and deals from all corners of the world. The easy part? You can choose your city, region, country, or destination, and they’ll show you the deals. Cheap Flights galore!
Let’s say that you want to see only the business class deals. Just search for “business” or “first” in the top right corner. The results will come right back.
City Specific
Want to leave from your city? See a list of deals that will all depart from your city? Just type that into the search bar. Since we live in Seattle, we opted for that search.
It is one of the most user friendly interfaces that we’ve found and can provide you with a bunch of deals, depending on if you want to come or go!
The Flight Deal
This is a great site for domestic travel deals, as only occasionally I’ll find international deals here. Their easy search functionality lies in their drop down menu on the top left. You can easily choose your departure city and all the deals pop right up.
I will say that I prefer the Flight Deal’s fares mores than Secret Flying, especially if you’re looking to do mileage runs. Deals come fast and you’ve got to be willing to act fast. There’s been plenty of times when we’ve seen a quick deal come up, grabbed it, only to find that two hours later the deal is gone.
Thrifty Traveler
Our friend’s Jared and Nick run The Thrifty Traveler. It’s based out of Minnesota and it’s a totally home grown operation. They’ve got a team who is constantly scouring the internet for deals. They mostly focus on coach travel, but occasionally there will be a good business class fare as well. In my opinion they’ve got the market on cheap flights!
The coolest feature of their website is the Premium Subscription feature. For only $30/year you can get customized notifications delivered instantly to you. You choose your region that you want to leave out of so you’re not seeing fares from Tulsa when you live in Tampa.
Also, you will get emails of mistake fares. Those fares disappear within minutes or hours, so acting fast is the key. So for only $2.50 a month you’ve got the ability to get those deals NOW! And trust me, you’re going to save more than $30 a year by signing up.
Flyertalk Premium Fares
Flyertalk is a huge online community of travelers helping travelers. The Premium Fares channel is a gold mine for finding really good deals. While some of them might not depart from your hometown, often many are, and cover all sorts of alliances, airlines, destinations, and classes of service.
Some of the lingo might be hard to understand at first but you’ll pick up quickly. “J” means business class, “F” means first class, etc. It takes a while, but it’s a very addictive website, especially once you realize all the deals that there are!
Twitter!
Most people I talk to don’t have twitter. Don’t worry, I didn’t have a personal twitter for the longest time, that is until I found that you can contact airlines, hotels, and other companies a lot faster than you can get them on the phone. It’s also an amazing place to get the fastest information from the above websites on those deals! I also follow BoardingArea’s twitter as well, as many bloggers will post about the deals as soon as they arrive.
March 31, 2018
Have you ever used Nextvacay?
April 1, 2018
I haven’t heard of that one before. Have you found good deals? Coach or Business?
April 1, 2018
All Nextvacay does is steal other sites deals with no attribution. Pretty terrible ethics but there really is no way to hold them accountable.
April 1, 2018
Sounds like some bloggers I’ve worked with 🙂
April 1, 2018
I’ve used Whiskr to find some great deals. I did a review of them awhile back. They have a good interface and loads of premium features for a low price.