5 travel planning hacks to get the cheapest flights

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Fly a discount airline:

They are not always the popular choice; especially when travelers require multiple travel bags, but discount airlines tend to have deals that are hard to beat to cities like Las Vegas, NYC, Las Angeles, and so on, compared to major airline carriers.

Discount Airlines:

• Spirit Airlines

• JetBlue

• Frontier Airlines

• Southwest Airlines

• Virgin America

Yes, you will likely have a "bare fare" kind of flight. That said, if you are only traveling for a few days, all discount airlines allow a free personal item (18 x 14 x 8 inches). I have flown Spirit Airlines quite a bit for short vacations (1 - 3 days) and I have always gotten away with packing a personal item and not paying for bags.

• I have used a weekender shoulder bag and a backpack in the past and never once been questioned or charged. The basic criteria is that it must be able to fit under the front seat if overhead space is needed.

If your travel plans require a checked bag and you do not want to pay the additional fee, still compare flight prices between discount airlines and major airlines before purchase.

Sometimes major airlines have great travel promotions added to their zero/ limited fees policies and the final price truly is the best deal. Other times, the bare fare, plus your checked bags, and even an upgrade to the front of the plane where the seats typically are roomier, is still the cheaper option.

Airline + Hotel:

When booking travel via websites like Expedia, Vegas.com, Hotwire.com, and so on, often times if you book your hotel and flight together in the same package, you will receive a pretty significant discount! I have done this many times and each time the final price always ends up being cheaper than completing flight and hotel bookings separately.

Occasionally, airlines wrap up a super cheap flight in a pretty little bow, like my recent flight to Amsterdam from NYC, that no travel package can beat. With my Amsterdam trip, it was cheaper to purchase the flight, then book hotels later. Most times, however, air+hotel is the way to go! If you need a rental car, air+hotel+car is the way to go! The more you combine, the cheaper each becomes; including your flights!

Visit during non-peak months:

The cheapest time to fly to any major city or vacation destination is during low-travel times. In order to increase flight sales to seasonal areas during non-peak months, airlines will decrease flight costs and advertise the heck out of them. They do this in hopes to entice people to travel during low travel months, and it works!

Take Las Vegas for example. Trends indicate that February, March, April, and June are not the months you want to visit the "Entertainment Capital of the World!" Months outside this time-frame should be lower in cost, with August and October being the cheapest.

My advice, head to Skyscanner and type in your travel details. When it is time to indicate your dates of travel, click the "Whole Month" option. You will be shown a list of all 12 months and an option called "Cheapest Month;" choose "Cheapest Month." Skyscanner will show you exactly when the cheapest time to fly is to help you budget your trip.

Pick the right day of the week to fly:

There are many ways you can identify the cheapest day of the week to fly. Skyscaner can help you out with their "Whole Month" option introduced above. You can also go to the Hopper app for a super easy cheap flights identifier right there in your handy-dandy cell phone. Both have been incredibly helpful to me when trying to get the best prices on airfare. You may also want to try Google (I don't think I need to link Google). Just type "What is the best day of the week to fly to (insert destination)" and Google does a pretty good job identifying days of the week for each airport desired. Google will not show you prices like Skyscanner or Hopper, but it will tell you the day of the week that trends as cheapest travel days for a specific location.

Example:

Staying on track with the Las Vegas theme, I have learned throughout my Vegas travels that the best day to fly in and out of McCarran International Airport (Las Vegas) is on a Wednesday, Tuesday, or Saturday. I have also learned that airline tickets tend to cost more on Friday's and Sunday's. This is likely due to weekend travelers flying in on Friday's and out on Sunday's. Another factors is that hotels cost less during the week, as opposed to on the Weekend; especially Friday and Saturday's. Vegas travelers often fly in on Sunday's and out on Friday's to avoid the inflated Friday and Saturday rates.

Fly out of an International/hub airport:

Smaller airports tend to have more expensive flights for several reasons. The main ones are that they tend to charge airlines that fly in and out of them higher fees. Also, they typically are the only airport within a large region, and therefore can get away with charging a heftier price.

Additionally, less airlines fly in and out of these smaller regional airports. The airlines that do know this and they too will charge a bit more and people will pay it so not to have to commute to a larger city that has a hub airport. Also, many discount airlines outlined at the beginning of this article do not service smaller airports; it is primarily major airlines who do. Hub airports have lower airline fees, more discounts, and most airlines fly in and out of them, which keeps the flight costs down.

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Time to start budget travel shopping:

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