We all love to bag a deal when it comes to flights – let’s be honest it’s normally the most expensive part of any trip. So, when cheap flights come up how can you make them work for you, even if they’re not your first-choice destination?
Whether that means journeying straight out of the airport to a different town or city, or being more flexible and going for open-ended tickets, here’s how to make the most out of cheap flights.
Pack light
It’s hardly news that if the flights are cheap, there’s a good chance baggage isn’t included. This means to make the most out of those bargain flights, you need to pack light.
Remember these standard practices to keep everything light and breezy:
- Wear your heaviest stuff on the flight, including boots and coats.
- Roll don’t fold – you’ll fit more in.
- Check the sizing in advance – every airline is different, and the sizes keep changing.
- Opt for backpacks or soft-sided bags versus small cases. They’re more flexible and you can squish more in them!
- Don’t bring liquids if you can help it – you can buy supplies there.
- Coat pockets are your best friends, fill them up!
- Wear items like over-ear headphones or scarves as you board, you can always take them off on the flight or in the airport area.
Be flexible
If you want to make the most of your cheap flights, you need to be flexible. The cheapest flights are rarely going to be on weekends or in the holiday season. Use whole month views on Google Flights or Skyscanner to find the best days.
Also, be flexible about your location. You might have certain destinations at the top of your bucket list, but be open to new places. If you’re tied to specific dates or weeks, you can put in your home airport and put everywhere in the Skyscanner destination box and they’ll order the results by cheapest countries first.
This can open up more budget-friendly options that you might not have considered. Some of my best trips have been found this way, including my recent trip to Bologna!
Get open-ended tickets
Want to check out two places at once or the return flights aren’t lining up? Open-ended tickets or buying two single tickets is an awesome way to make the most of your flight deals. For instance, on my trip to Nice and Monte Carlo, the flights to Nice were cheap but the return flights were ridiculous, so we flew out of nearby Marseille instead.
So, if you time your flights right, you can get a full day or two in an extra city, which is a huge bonus. I did this when I flew out of Verona after spending a few days in Bologna. The flight wasn’t until the evening, so I got the first train out in the morning and spent the whole day there before heading to the airport.
Check out your transport links
One of the first things that I do when I see cheap flights for places that I’ve either been to before or destinations I’m not massively bothered about, is head to the Flixbus route map. You can pick your jumping-off point (the city or sometimes directly from that airport) and it’ll show you everywhere you can get a bus to. This is so cool because I can jump on a cheap flight and head straight out of the airport to a different city or even country.
If buses aren’t your thing, you can also check out RailEurope and Omio to see the train links to different cities and regions. You can click through to the station’s departure boards and see where the common links are and where you can get to and from easily.
Final tips for making the most out of cheap flights
So, if you can be flexible, find routes in and around different airports, and pack light, you can really make the most of those cheap flights. If you can do that, it means you can take more trips a year and see even more!
With that in mind, here are some final tips and tricks.
Sign up for flight deal websites
To find great deals in the first place, it’s always worth signing up for flight deal websites. My favourites are Going.com and Jack’s Flight Club. You can set alerts for your top destinations and they’ll send you fresh deals as and when they come up.
Look out for airline hubs
If you’re looking for deals with onward travel connections, airport hubs are going to be great. Sometimes if you’re going long-haul, certain airports are going to be cheaper. For example, if you’re going to Panama from Europe, KLM is one of the most frequent and cheapest routes. So, if you’re in the UK, it’s worth popping across to Amsterdam to the KLM hub to get the cheaper flight.
Certain airports are always going to be cheap for you
If you’re looking from the same home airport every time, the same cheap flights are going to come around time and time again. From Liverpool (LPL), for instance, my home airport, flights to Dublin, Brussels, Milan, and Stockholm always tend to be under £40-50 return.
So, to keep on making the most of cheap flights, use the Flixbus route maps and rail maps to see where you can get to from these destinations.
Look for out-of-town airports
Most cheaper airlines, like Ryanair or Easyjet, are going to be flying into airports that are further out of the major cities. For example, there are two airports in Oslo and Ryanair always fly into the airport that’s around an hour and a half outside of the city, rather than the central one.
If you’re flying to these further out airports, make sure you can get into the cities easily and in time for your flights. A lot of the time, there will be connections or transfers you can take, but to make the most out of the flight deals, double-check transport to weigh up if it’s actually cheaper than more expensive tickets into central airports.
Shoulder season is your friend
Now, traveling in the peak season is never super cheap. This should come as no surprise. However, there is a mid-year flight schedule change when the summer and winter schedules swap over. The closer you can book to this switch, the better the deals tend to be, especially if it’s not a year-round destination.
Shoulder season means that rates are often cheaper and there are fewer crowds around, so it can be a great time to experience new places!
