Finding a reasonable flight these days can feel like such a daunting task! You have to hop from site to site, scan across multiple dates, and then still wonder whether the price you’ve found is the best available. Even though someone else is usually picking up the cost of my flights (yay work travel?), I’m still conscious of trying to get the best deal I can. Fresh off another last-minute trip we were able to make happen thanks to an amazing fare on a nonstop flight to Columbus OH, I’m rounding up a few options for searching for the best flight options.
KAYAK
Kayak is probably the best known option for flight searches. The interface is easy, with lots of filters that can be applied to meet your preferences. Unfortunately, it typically recommends round trip options with the same carrier or booked as a single ticket via one carrier or third party. It also excludes flights from Southwest – and as a Dallas-based girl, those Southwest flights can save me a fortune! Unsure of where you want to go? Try Kayak Explore, where you can put in an activity or region, general time of year, and number of days, and it will pull up flight prices based on what others have found in their searches. The one limitation of this is if you’re looking pretty far out and someone hasn’t searched that route, it won’t pull up (like my trip to Hungary last year – no results!).
GOOGLE FLIGHTS
If you like Kayak, then you’ll like Google Flights even more. Google Flights pulls similar data to Kayak, plus tells you if a cheaper price is available for booking two one-way tickets (totally possible, and has happened to me more than once). Plus, if you click “show longer or more expensive options” the timing for Southwest flights to the same destination will appear. They don’t have prices for Southwest, but at least you can see if there’s a comparable option, then follow the link to Southwest’s site. And, like Kayak, Google Destinations lets you map out different trip ideas and see where the best place to fly into might be. Beyond the option to view Southwest flight options, I prefer Google Flights over Kayak because both their flexible date calendar and a header at the top of the resulting flight options show you how much you can save by traveling another date. It makes it easy to see when to plan a vacation if you have a few choices!
ITA Matrix
By far the most complex of the tools available is the ITA Matrix. The ITA Matrix is owned by Google (Google Flights runs off the same data), but gives you the option of adding advanced routing codes to plan for layover cities, layover durations, and specific carriers. I use the ITA Matrix when I’m booking complex international itineraries and am looking for something specific. For example, I wanted to avoid the BA surcharge to London on a recent award ticket, so I used the ITA Matrix to search for tickets where the DFW-LHR leg was on American rather than BA. I’ve also used it in the winter when I needed to route through a warm weather city to avoid the potential delays that a Philadelphia or Chicago connection can bring, and for a flight where I wanted a 24 hour layover in Phoenix to stop by my parents’ house for dinner.
What tips and tricks do you have for finding the best flight options?