Tips and tools to find cheap flights!

Here are our travel hacking tips and tools to help you find cheap flights!

Travel hacking or the art of saving on travel

Being a travel hacker means trying to save money on all your travel expenses:

accommodation ( with hotel points or travel points for airbnb)
car rental(with points & miles)
conversion fees for foreign currency purchases
travel insurance via the right credit cards
and of course, the plane tickets!

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Whether you redeem loyalty program points or you are smart about how you spend your money, it’s possible to save hundreds or even thousands of dollars on EVERY trip!

Discover our tips and the best tools to find cheap flights and save on airfare.

Tips for finding cheap flights

You could very well wait for sites like Yulair to alert you to “low cost flights”.

YULAIR

But sometimes it will be:

for destinations that do not interest you
travel dates that don’t match YOUR holidays
often too late because these deals last a short time

While in travel, whether it’s with loyalty points or paying for your ticket, FLEXIBILITY is key to finding good deals, sometimes it’s just not possible.

Families know this when they have to leave for spring break or the holiday season.

alexandra arthur air canada

Before we look at the different platforms for booking airline tickets, here are some tips for finding cheap flights.

Local airports for cheap flights

The search tools have become very sophisticated and often allow you to choose several destination (and even departure) airports.

If you are willing to travel to or from the airport to get a cheap flight, this is often an opportunity to save a lot of money.

aeroports de proximite 1

Combining 2 tickets for low cost flights

This technique is especially valid for Transatlantic flights: you find a cheap ticket to fly across the Atlantic, then you use a reliable low-cost airline like Easyjet or Ryanair to reach your final destination.

It is not uncommon to see airfare between Montreal and Paris around $500-600.

yul cdg

And from Paris you can fly to any city in Europe with a low cost airline.

easyjet cdg

Burlington / Plattsburgh airports for low cost flights

When you are alone or with a partner, it can be difficult to justify going to these U.S. airports because of the :

expenses (gas, parking, hotel…)
constraints (land customs clearance, dawn flights)

This often exceeds the money gained.

douanes americaines

However, when you travel with your family or a group of friends, it may be worthwhile to compare prices.

It’s up to you to make the profitability calculations.

From 3-4 people, the savings can be substantial: you share the costs (car travel, hotels) but each of you saves on his ticket.

Don’t forget the opportunity to use your hotel points to save on your night in Plattsburgh or Burlington if you choose this option. We have tried it and have been particularly helpful in this regard.

With the Best Western Rewards^® Mastercard, you can, for example. get 20,000 points for free! That’s the cost of a night at this Best Western Plus hotel in Plattsburgh.

plattsburgh best western — Best Western Plus – Plattsburgh (NY)

Positioning with points for low cost flights

Positioning is a travel hacking trick: you use your points to position yourself at an airport (often in the United States) that has very competitive prices compared to Canada.

Here you can use Avios miles to get to Miamibecause you found a cheap ticket to Sao Paulo.

The reverse is of course possible: you pay for an airline ticket to pick up an award ticket from another airport.

For example, here you will pay your airfare to Miami . And from Miami you will go to Sao Paulo, thanks to Avios miles:

And even better: you’ll use miles from one program for the first flight… and miles from another program for the rest of the trip!

In this last example, you found availability on Aeroplan for your flight to Miami and availability with Avios miles for the Miami – Sao Paulo portion.

Positioning is a great travel hacking technique to find cheap flights!

The hidden city technique for a cheap one-way flight

The airlines’ algorithms are designed in such a way thata person who wants to book a direct flight (Montreal – Vancouver) will pay more than a person booking a connecting ticket (Montreal – Vancouver – Las Vegas).

In the example below, the first flight is identical, but the passenger adding Las Vegas as a destination will get a lower fare.

skiplagged yul yvr las

So all you have to do is get off the plane in Vancouver and “miss” your connection to Las Vegas.

Of course, this type of travel hacking technique is questionable and fought by the airlines. If you want to do this, there are several caveats:

Only book a one-way ticket: if you take a round trip, it will be cancelled as you will not be on your second flight
Travel with cabin baggage only: your checked baggage is likely to end up at the original destination
Do not enter a loyalty program number for this reservation
Stay… discreet.

One of the major “dangers” of this technique: the change of schedule!

In the above example, if your Montreal – Vancouver flight was cancelled / delayed for any reason, the airline could impose a new itinerary which would not go through Vancouver to reach your final destination!

So you’d be in Las Vegas… not Vancouver!

the cosmopolitan of las vegas autograph collection hotel 31

Tools to find cheap flights

Now that you are familiar with the different tips to find cheap tickets, let’s take a look at the different tools at your disposal!

Low cost flights with Google Flights

Google Flights is certainly the most popular and user-friendly search tool for:

find low cost flights by city, country and even continent
tracking flight prices and be alerted of changes

Here is an example of a search for a low cost flight for a week, anytime in the next 6 months between Montreal… and anywhere in America.

A really vague search… but this is the type of search that sites offering discount flights like Yulair do manually/automatically.

Here, you can see for example a low cost flight between Montreal and Toronto on Air Transat at only 139$ round trip.

So this is the kind of research you can take the time to do yourself on Google Flights… by fine tuning YOUR criteria:

Duration of the trip
Departure / return dates
Departure / return times
Destination: airport (MIA), region (Florida), country (USA), continent (North America)
Maximum rate
Travel cabin (economy, premium economy, business, premier)
Airline company
Airline alliance (Star Alliance, Oneworld, Skyteam)

The Google Flights interface has recently been revised and is fully customizable: sky is the limit!

We particularly appreciate the real time update of the results according to the movement of the map.

Please note the important differences for a same day flight to different airports in the Los Angeles area:

google flights carte 1

Low cost flights with Kiwi

Kiwi.com works under the same principle as Google Flights, but will also offer, for some destinations, bus and train trips in addition to the plane via the NOMAD tool.

kiwi nomad 1

For example, here is a search for 3 to 5 nights in each of these 3 destinations: Paris, Nice and Athens.

NOMAD will offer me the best options by combining different carriers and especially the ideal itinerary!

You can ask Kiwi. com to set up crazy itineraries with the NOMAD option.

Here, I asked Kiwi.com to go through 3 regions: Southern Europe, South Africa and Brazil. The tool found me a nice combination of tickets.

You can use our dedicated page to search on Kiwi.com to find low cost flights that match YOUR desires!

Low cost flights with Escape

Escape is a search engine for cheap flights. It was developed by the MIT Senseable City Laboratory in Singapore.

What makes it special? You put in your departure airport, your return dates, and it takes care of displaying all the flights on a map… so that you can choose your low cost flight on dates that match YOUR availability!

escape accueil

In addition, the tool allows you to filter further according to:

your budget
direct or indirect flight
whether or not a visa is required
the popularity of the destination
the climate

For those who like “Big Data“, the site is really nice visually and clearly displays all the available airlines in your price range.

And once you click on the search Magnifying Glass, like I did on the price of Morocco at $695, Escape focuses on that destination and offers you other information like “specialties” of that destination.

Finally, by clicking on the city – here Tangier / Morocco – the search starts with all flights.

We can see that the main engines used are those of Kiwi.com and Skyscanner, the two market leaders. Escape also shows you weather information, and Tripadvisor data.

So Escape is an impressive site where we could spend hours “playing” to find cheap flights!

Low cost flights with Skiplagged

Skiplagged is a real Travel Hacking tool…. which announces the color from its homepage:

skiplagged 1

This tool will allow you to find cheap flights via the hidden city technique.

You can search with a specific date but without a destination to find cheap flights.

Like this example for a low cost flight from Montreal on 10/09:

skiplagged montreal 1

Let’s look at the case of the flight to Washington posted at CA$157 instead of CA$193:

skiplagged washington

Here you book a flight from Montreal to Boston. But you will stop in Washington to take advantage of the 157 CA$ fare!

If you book a “hidden city” ticket, Skiplagged reminds you of the usual precautions:

skiplagged info

Programs to apply points on low cost flights

After the tips and tools to find cheap flights, let’s take a look at the loyalty programs that allow you to apply points to your airfare purchases!

Booking a ticket with the right credit card can save you a lot of money. Simply apply your points to the expense.

American Express Membership Rewards

The American Express Membership Rewards program is arguably the most flexible rewards program in Canada.

Membership Rewards can be used in a variety of ways:

Convert Membership Rewards to hotel loyalty programs (Marriott Bonvoy, Hilton Honors)
Conversion of Membership Rewards points to airline loyalty programs (Aeroplan, British Airways Executive Club, Delta Skymiles…)
Use Membership Rewards as a travel credit (10,000 points = $100)

So you can use any American Express Membership Rewards card to book your low-cost flight… and apply your Membership Rewards to the purchase of your airline ticket:

See, for example, this purchase of an airline ticket on Air Transat with theAmerican Express Cobaltᵐᶜ Card:

cobalt transat

You can use as few as 1,000 points to reduce the bill by $10.

By using your card to purchase the ticket, you are covered in case of flight / baggage delay!

HSBC Rewards Points

The principle of the HSBC Rewards program is the same.

Here is an example of travel purchases charged to the HSBC World Elite Mastercard. You can follow the process here.

use travel credit hsbc en

When you pay for your airfare with a card like the HSBC World Elite Mastercard, you’re covered with excellent insurance. In addition, this is one of the only cards in Canada that does not charge any foreign currency conversion fees. Save money on your low-cost flights purchased abroad!