Probably the biggest expense in planning your trip is going to be booking your airfare. The debate goes on and on as far as which website has the cheapest flights, and the secret is that it all comes down to one word: flexibility

Your dates: The day of the week that you fly out can make a significant difference in pricing. Mid week flights (Tuesday-Thursday) are usually less expensive than weekend flights (Saturday) so if you can, try and plan your trip around that.

Your location: If you aren’t flexible in the dates (as you only have a certain amount of time off of work, etc.) try to be flexible in your location (either by choosing a hub airport nearby, or checking several different locations. Maybe you want a beach vacation, but does it have to be Miami? Would you be happy just as happy in San Diego or the Bahamas?

The Time: If you can’t change the day you travel or the location, can you be flexible in the time of day you fly? Red eye flights as well as flights that leave after the morning rush (around mid afternoon) can generally be less expensive.

When it comes to the best site to check for flights, my suggestion is to check them all against each other, then check the individual airlines website that has come up with the lowest price and see if that airline is offering a lower fare by booking directly through their site.

Once you think you have found the lowest fare, than bidding sites such as priceline and hotwire come in handy because you can bid even lower than your lowest price to see if you can get them to accept that offer (it gives you a point of reference.) Keep in mind that once you book through these sites, the sale is final, you may not get the exact flight time that you wanted, and make sure you have the final price after all the taxes and fees are added to it.

My secret weapon is skyscanner.com which has put me in some places I never would have thought I would ended up and changed my routes to a more affordable fare with the “search everywhere” function.

A quick Lesson:

Let’s just say for example, I am flying from New York but not sure where to go yet. Instead of typing in a specific city in the “to” section, I would type in ‘everywhere’ and my date. (I always select one-way travel first, and view the entire month versus a specific day.)  I can always go back and compare the price for a round trip ticket later (which usually is cheaper.) From there it gives you a list of countries and places in order of pricing. When you select a destination, it will come up with the best price for the month and city that you selected. (I always select to view by graph as it is visually much easier to find the cheapest day.)

You might save money by booking the flight from another airport, but keep in mind the cost of transportation to get to that neighboring airport (and find out exactly how far away it really is.) The cost of transfers between airports (not to mention the exhausting travel day you could have) might make it worth it to just fly from or directly to the city you want to go to.

So feel free to test it out below and if you haven’t already, sign up for one of the frequent flyer credit cards so that you can be earning miles towards a free flight for the next time around.