Flights are the most expensive part of travel, and we fly a lot, so we've had to figure out the best way to find cheap, or free, flights! Here's our advice:
Step 1: Google Flights
I start all flight searches on Google Flights because, in my opinion, it's the easiest to use to start finding some general route information.
Some things I really like about Google Flights:
It will automatically search surrounding airports if you search for the main city for the cheapest route (ex: Los Angeles searches LAX and Burbank airports automatically)
You can add up to 7 airports at a time in the Origin and Destination sections to search for the cheapest route (ex: instead of just LAX and Burbank, I can add Orange County, Long Beach, Ontario and Palm Springs airports)
Searching Open Jaw flights through their Multi-City feature. For example, if you want to leave from Los Angeles, go to France, but ultimately end up in San Francisco, you can do that search and even add the surrounding airports as described above for the cheapest route
Lastly, my favorite feature is their Google Explore tab. This is where things get interesting if you're flexible with plans (ex: you know you want to go to Europe but don't necessarily care where you go) or you're open to taking commuter planes or other transportation to get to your final destination (ex: you want to end up in Athens but are open to booking one leg to Paris from LA because it's cheaper and then taking a cheap RyanAir flight to Athens) or you are flexible on dates (ex: you want to go to Europe in the next 3 months)
Step 2: Verify it's the best time to buy with Hopper (or Capital One Travel)
Once you've narrowed in on the flight that you want to take, use Hopper or Capital One Travel portal if you have a Capital One card, to verify that it's the best possible time to fly. Hopper is an app that tracks the cost of airline tickets, car rentals, and hotel rooms over time to give you a historical analysis of whether the current price is above or below the typical fare for a given date. It'll use this data to tell you if it's a good time to book or if you should wait. Hopper claims a 95% accuracy rate. The reason that you can use Capital One Travel portal as well is because it's built on Hoppers search technology.
Hopper itself is an app so you need to download it and search on your mobile phone.
Put your general route into Hopper (ex: One-way LAX to CDG)
It will spit out the historical data and share if it's a good time to buy
If it's not, it'll allow you to track the flight and send you a push notification when it recommends purchasing the flight
Step 3: Decide if you want to purchase with cash or miles / points, and where the best possible place is to buy to get the best deal!
This is where the magic happens (and where it can get confusing!). Now that you've picked your flight and decided it's a good time to buy, it's time to figure out the best way to buy this flight for the best value. For us, that's typically on points or miles, which is how we've been traveling the world without paying for flights!
Side Note: The way that we accrue points and miles is generally through credit cards and specifically through their sign up bonuses. I'll preface this with - I am not a financial advisor - I can only share what has worked for us. Credit Cards and sign up bonuses can be a whole other article, so to simplify it here I'll just share the credit cards that we have and the bonuses we received during sign up: Chase Sapphire Reserve (100K points), Capital One VentureX (100K points), AMEX Platinum (100K points) United Explorer Card (80K miles), Southwest Rapid Rewards Plus Card (50K miles + Companion Pass for a year).
So with that context, here's how I'd search where to book the flight for the best points value. For this portion, let's use a recent example of a one-way flight we booked from Paris to New York on United. The dollar amount for the flight is $1,525.
Plug that flight into each of the three main travel portals (Chase, Capital One and AMEX) and see what the flight would be to book with points
Google if that's a good points value (ex: Chase Sapphire Reserve points are worth 1.5 cents each. There are TONS of resources online that lay out the points values for each credit card or airline rewards programs. My favorites are The Points Guy and NerdWallet, but a simple Google search will help you find a lot. Here's an example of a great article by NerdWallet on maximizing the value of your Chase Sapphire Reserve card)
Compare the points value to the miles value on the specific airline. For example - if it's a United flight, go to the United website and plug in that same route (CDG - NYC) and check the "Search with Miles" box. Note: Some airlines will make you sign up for their rewards program and sign in before being able to search with miles. In this case, that exact same flight is 22,600 miles
Google if it's a good points redemption, same as above (example search: "Good value for United miles")
Do the quick math - in this example the flight from Paris to New York is 22,600 miles and we know it would be $1,525 to book it with cash. That means you're getting 14 cents value per mile, which is excellent because the standard value is 1 cent per mile, even with the $77 fee. In this case we saved $1,448 on this flight!
Decide if it makes more sense to use your credit card points or airline miles. In this case it's clear to you should book using United miles. BIG TIP: Even if you don't have enough miles for that particular airline (ex: if I only had 10,000 miles on United but needed 22,600 to book the flight) you can transfer your points from all credit cards points program to that airline. Most airline transfer partners are 1:1, meaning 1 point per 1 mile, which is a great conversion. Sometimes, the credit card partners also run promotions with airlines that make your points more valuable. For example, at the time of this writing, Chase is running a deal where you get 30% more points to miles when you transfer to Virgin Atlantic. It's simple to transfer, just go into the credit card travel portal, and click on Transfer to Travel Partners
Book your flight on United - YAY!
Even if you decide that you want to book using cash versus miles or points, I'd still recommend using the credit card travel portal if you have one, because you get great points value. For example, if you book flights in the Chase travel portal, you get 5x points per dollar on that purchase. If you book a hotel through the Chase portal, you get 10x points per dollar on that purchase, versus the 3x points per dollar you get on travel.
My last tip is to subscribe to a flight deal email if you're serious about getting some cheap flights. We recommend Scott's Cheap Flights and the Flight Deal. They are both services that scour the internet for you for cheap flight deals and send you an email when they have great deals.
This is super helpful! Definitely bookmarking this how to for my next trip!