Tips for Booking Cheap Flights
Planning a trip? Flying home to visit family? Looking for cheap flight options? Follow these tips for great, money-saving deals!
1. Don’t book your flight last minute!
You can save sooo much money by being prepared! If you are planning on going somewhere – look to book those tickets 6-8 weeks before you plan on leaving, 3 weeks before at the latest. Last-minute tickets are expensive because low fares sell out faster. Also, prices can change at any time so don’t wait! If you see a good deal – snatch it!
2. Try to avoid big travel days and be flexible
Holiday and big travel days are obviously very expensive days to fly, if you can be flexible and leave a couple of days before or a couple of days after that busy day — your flight will likely be less expensive. In general, Tuesdays and Wednesdays are the least busy travel days, so check if flights are leaving those days too!
3. Student Discounts
ISIC Canada provides discounts to their members for airline companies such as Pacific Coastal Airlines, who flies within the regional west coast of Canada and you can get 15% off your airline ticket, and Bearskin Airlines, who provides service between North-Western Ontario and North-Eastern Ontario and offers 25% off student stand-by fees with ISIC. If you are interested in learning more about these deals, check out https://isiccanada.ca/.
4. Search, search, search
Not all possible sites are on one particular website. Be sure you use several sources and airline booking sites. You could stumble across deals that are not promoted as predominantly as others.
Check out some of Canada’s budget airlines such as Flair Airlines, Swoop, Jetlines, Air Canada Rouge, and Porter. You can travel worldwide with these airlines while saving money. Here’s a quick comparison from October 2020: a round trip from Calgary to Toronto was around $414 if you search on Google Flights, while on Flair Airlines the exact same trip was $199.
When you are searching, don’t be afraid to fly indirectly. You can sometimes save money by stopping in other countries, and if there is enough time between your flights, you could discover a new country!
5. Fly with carry-on only
If you are over-prepared, over-packer like me, this might be a little hard but trust me it’s worth it! On most major airlines, the largest size of carry-on you can bring is 56 x 36 x 23 cm – which you can honestly fit a lot into. If you are going somewhere tropical and warm, let’s be honest you’re probably going to be living in your bathing suit, so bring a cover-up, a fancy pair of clothes, an everyday pair of clothes, and maybe something athletic or comfy. Also, most Airlines make you pay at least $25 for your first checked bag, it might not seem like a lot but you are saving.