How to find cheap flights
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Hey Freaking Nomads,
Last month, I booked a flight from Lisbon to Bangkok for €310.
The same flight, when my friend looked two days later, was €690!
When she asked me what my secret was, I realized I don't actually have one. I just have a bunch of small habits I've built up over years of being slightly obsessed with not overpaying to sit in a metal tube.
The timing for this is not great either. Fares have been climbing since the war with Iran spiked jet fuel prices, with international round-trip flights up around 42% in a couple of months. Sooo I'm not paying full price if I can help it 🤷
Here's what actually works for me.
Search in incognito, always. I don't know how much of the "prices go up when you search repeatedly" thing is real and how much is paranoia, but it costs me nothing to open a private window, so I do!
Be flexible on the day, not just the route. I use the "whole month" view on Google Flights almost every time. Shifting a Tuesday departure to a Wednesday has saved me more money than any loyalty program ever has.
Fly into the airport nobody wants. Everyone flies into the main hub. The secondary airport an hour away is often half the price, and an hour on a cheap train is fine when you're not in a rush. And as a nomad, you're rarely in a rush.
Set the alert and then forget about it. I add routes I'm vaguely interested in to Google Flights alerts and just let them sit. When something drops, I get an email that saves me from compulsively refreshing.
Book the two legs separately. Sometimes the "direct" booking is wildly more expensive than just buying flight A and flight B yourself. Annoying, but worth checking.
And for the return ticket immigration asks for, I use dummy tickets. No point committing to a full fare just to prove onward travel, especially when I don't even know where I'm going next. A temporary reservation does the job and cancels itself a couple of days later.
What I've learned, though, is that cheap is not the same as good.
I've booked the €40 flight that left at 5am from an airport two hours away and landed me somewhere with no transport until morning. I "saved" money and lost a day of my life and most of my will to live.
So now I ask myself: is this cheap, or is it just a trap with a low number on it?
Usually the answer is obvious once you actually ask.
What's your one non-negotiable flight-hunting trick? Hit reply, teach me, I'm listening!
Irene
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I mentioned dummy tickets up top, so let me actually tell you which one I use.
For literally years now, whenever immigration or a visa application wants proof of onward travel, I've reached for OnwardTicket. It's saved me from booking flights I had no intention of taking, and just made the whole experience less stressful.
Here's the short version of why it works:
A real, verifiable reservation with a live PNR you can look up on the airline's own site, not a fake document
Valid for 2, 7, or 14 days, so you get breathing room while you wait on a visa
Delivered fast, usually within about 30 minutes
Pick your airline and flight, so the details actually make sense for your route
4.8 on Trustpilot, which is a big part of why I trust handing it to a border agent
If you're staying flexible right now (and with fares where they are, who isn't?), this is the easy way to tick the onward-travel box without locking yourself into anything.
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Written by
Irene Wang
Digital nomad and co-founder of Freaking Nomads. She shares raw, unfiltered stories and helps nomads find resources to thrive while traveling and working remotely.
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