CHEAP FLIGHTS | PSREPORTER.COM

Google Flights is beginning to roll out a new price guarantee feature on select flights departing from the U.S. If you book a flight with the price guarantee badge and the price drops, you’ll get a refund of the difference (with a maximum of $500 per calendar year) from Google Flights via Google Pay. However, you can only receive up to 3 price guaranteed refunds at any one time.

Google Flight’s new price guarantee feature will refund the difference if your flight’s price drops on select flights. Image Credit: Google Flights

Price graph shows you the pricing trends for your route and allows you to see what days might be cheaper to fly

Since this search engine is so powerful with lots of options, it could get complicated for a novice traveler

You can earn frequent flyer miles on flights booked through an OTA, but you might not earn miles toward elite status.

CheapOair is an OTA that offers its own credit card. Before you go apply for the card, we recommend considering choosing a better travel rewards credit card for more lucrative and flexible travel rewards.

This site might not be as cheap as you would think. That’s because it can charge expensive “agency fees.” For most flights, the fees can be up to $35, however, once you read the fine print, you’ll see they can actually be as high as $200 per ticket!

In addition, CheapOair charges a fee to change or cancel any ticket, including within 24 hours, which is free on many other sites.

Price Match Promise: CheapOair will refund the difference in price if you find a lower price on the same itinerary on a major OTA within 24 hours of booking

Price Match Promise is very limited; the guarantee is only good for identical flights on Expedia, Orbitz, Priceline, and Travelocity

CheapOair might not be cheap after all. It advertises low base fares, but it charges booking fees which usually result in a higher price than the airline’s website. For more information, check out our guide to CheapOair.

Hopper is an app that tries to predict the right time to buy a flight. It claims that using its app can save you up to 40% on flights. The simple interface and color-coded map show you the cheapest and most expensive times to fly to your chosen destination.

Hopper offers a great visual calendar to quickly search for the cheapest days to fly to a particular destination. Image Credit: Hopper

You can also set up alerts to watch the prices for your specific dates or watch a whole month if you have flexible travel plans.

There are many credit cards with travel insurance and extra protections like trip interruption and cancellation protection and baggage delay coverage. We suggest looking at Chase credit cards or Amex credit cards for great insurance coverage.

We searched for a flight from Los Angeles (LAX) to New York City (JFK) across different travel booking websites to compare pricing head-to-head. Below is the cheapest ticket each website offered.

In this search, we weren’t taking anything other than price into consideration. When you are actually booking a flight, there will most likely be more factors that go into your decision of which flight to book.

In this example, Google Flights, Hopper, and Priceline tied for the cheapest flight cost with Expedia, Hotwire, Orbitz, and Travelocity coming in just $3 more expensive. CheapOair was by far the most expensive option.

There is no one-stop shop to find the lowest prices on a flight every time. Most OTAs are in the same ballpark when it comes to price.

Cheap Flights

If you’ve got some flexibility, many of these sites can help you find the lowest-priced travel dates and destinations.

If you prefer a more traditional booking, start out with a travel search engine like Kayak or Google Flights to search all of the other sites. That will give you a good idea of the best website to use to save the most money on your next flight.

There is no single website that has the cheapest flights all of the time. Most of the travel search engines and online travel agencies all have similar pricing, however you can find some really nice deals when looking at opaque (hidden) bookings or vacation packages.

An opaque booking hides many of the flight details, including arrival and departure times and the operating airline, until your booking is complete. Many sites including Hotwire, Orbitz, and Travelocity offer these types of bookings.

Generally, yes, you will still be able to earn frequent flyer miles on flights booked through an online travel agency. However, miles earned to qualify for elite status may be not be awarded unless you book directly through the airline's website.

Your best bet would be to start with a travel search engine like Kayak or Google Flights. You will be able to see prices from many different websites in one place and you can track flight prices to help determine the best time to purchase tickets. Be sure to check out our guide to the best websites to book European vacation packages if you want to bundle your flight with a hotel and/or rental car.

Often, an airline will offer the lowest prices through its own website. However, you can often save money booking through an online travel agency (OTA) that has the ability to combine flights from more than 1 airline into a single itinerary.

It isn’t easy to find cheap flight deals with so many people trying to get them simultaneously. But there are some tricks to booking cheap flights that not everyone knows about.

Numerous websites claim they can find cheap airlines tickets for you. However, their sheer number can be tricky to know where to start your search for cheap fares.

That’s why we’ve put together this Dbd guide on how to find cheap flights in 2023 and beyond.

There are plenty of things you can do to book flights with cheap airline tickets. Some are more technical than others, but we will explain them in simple terms to help you understand.

One of the best ways to get cheap tickets is to book in advance. This is especially the best option for international travel and international flights.

Airlines release their flight schedules several months in advance. So if you know your travel dates, as the departure date, it is best to book your flight immediately, and you might save hundreds.

Advance booking is almost always better than last-minute booking. You will have a more comprehensive selection of cheap tickets and are less likely to get stuck with an expensive ticket.

You should always avoid booking flights at the last minute. It is rare for flight airfare to go down at later dates when so many travelers are in a last-minute rush.

Related info: Want to know how to get cheap flight deals from Dubai to India? Here is our comprehensive guide explaining – 10 Ways to Find Cheap Flights From Dubai to India.