How to Find Cheap Flights? 4 Basic Principles and 3 Tools

How do you find cheap airline tickets? It comes down to 4 principles — fly low-cost airlines, travel light, and stay flexible on both cities and dates — plus 3 free tools: Kayak Explore, Google Flights and Wikipedia. Using this method for our world tour, I booked 10 flights for our family of 4 — 40 tickets in total — for 3533 CAD (2,765 USD), only 883.25 CAD (691 USD) per person.

Here is our flight itinerary for the first 5 months of our trip, with what we paid for each leg:

Departing From	Arriving In	Airline Company	Total Cost (CAD)	Cost per person (CAD)
Montreal, Canada	Reykjavik, Iceland	Wow Air	1019.00	254.75
Reykjavik, Iceland	London, UK	EasyJet	258.00	64.50
London, UK	Basel, Switzerland	Ryanair	88.00	22.00
Basel, Switzerland	Berlin, Germany	EasyJet	107.00	26.75
Berlin, Germany	Sofia, Bulgaria	Ryanair	227.00	56.75
Istanbul, Turkey	Athens, Greece	Aegean Airlines	146.00	36.50
Chania, Greece	Paphos, Cyprus	Ryanair	189.00	47.25
Paphos, Cyprus	Tel Aviv, Israel	Ryanair	227.00	56.75
Amman, Jordan	Abu Dhabi, UAE	Etihad Airways	1272.00	318.00
Abu Dhabi, UAE	New Delhi, India	Etihad Airways
		Total	3533.00	883.25

2026 update: WOW air, the airline we flew from Montreal to Reykjavik, ceased all operations in March 2019 (source).

Amounts were paid in Canadian dollars. US-dollar equivalents use the exchange rate of February 28, 2018: 1 USD = 1.28 CAD.

My Philosophy

Spending an hour to save $100 is equivalent to earning $100 an hour after tax. — Poly

This saying makes perfect sense in the context of what I’m about to share with you. Admittedly, I came up with it myself, but that makes it no less true. For me, this saying represents a way of life, and expresses my personal philosophy. This way of thinking has let my family enjoy a quality of life comparable to that of an average family with twice our income, despite me being the sole earner. And it’s also for this reason that we’re able to plan a trip around the world.

Who can claim to earn $100 an hour after tax? Probably very few of us (certainly not me). But who can claim to save $100 an hour? To that question, I can say with confidence: almost anyone. Spending 8 hours to find 40 tickets for 3,533 CAD shows how achievable that goal is — I estimate I saved well over $800 during those 8 hours of research.

The Principles Behind the Method

The method rests on 4 principles. Apply them in whole or in part, and low prices become much easier to find.

• Use low-cost airlines;
• Travel light;
• Stay flexible on departure and arrival cities;
• Stay flexible on travel dates.

Use Low-Cost Airlines

This won’t surprise anyone. There’s a reason certain airlines are labeled “Low-Cost”: they charge less than traditional carriers. But watch out — “Low-Cost” doesn’t mean “No Service.” It means every extra service has a price, which can potentially increase the total cost of your flight. To stay economically profitable, these airlines come up with ingenious ways to cut costs, and so can offer very low fares. Some of these are:

• More seats per plane;
• Less legroom;
• Airports outside city centres;
• Less convenient flight times;
• The base fare covers one seat only;
• Only one small carry-on item included;
• Automated booking and check-in, with no human intervention;
• Extra fees for:
  • Advance seat selection;
  • Extra luggage;
  • Changes to the reservation;
  • Any human intervention.
• Nonstop flights only;
• No refund if you’re late;
• No-refund policy overall.

In other words, if comfort matters most to you, stick to traditional airlines: once you add up all the “free” extras they include, a low-cost ticket plus fees can end up costing more.

Here is the list of low-cost airlines.

Travel Light

Checked luggage can substantially raise the price of your ticket. Sometimes, though, paying $15 for a seat plus $50 to check a bag is still the cheaper option.

We planned to travel light, since we’d be taking many flights and wanted to avoid paying luggage fees on every leg — and avoid the stress of lost bags. We built our itinerary to skip cold seasons during our trip, and we planned to do laundry once a week, a small price to pay for the thousands of dollars saved on baggage fees. We also chose light, compact gear: every item had to earn its place in our bags.

We travel with 4 carry-ons: 1 Osprey Farpoint 40L backpack, 1 Osprey Fairview 40L backpack (the women’s version of the Farpoint), and 2 small Away Travel carry-on suitcases. The advantage of these bags is that they fit within the size limits set by most low-cost airlines, without having to pay extra baggage fees. They’re specifically designed for travelers who want to avoid checked-bag costs, so they’re durable and practical. They also come with a lifetime guarantee, unlike the cheaper bags we used before, which never lasted more than a few trips. If the outer shell cracks, rips, tears, or a wheel breaks or stops rolling smoothly, both Osprey and Away Travel will repair or replace it completely, no questions asked. These two companies offer some of the best warranties in the industry, and we chose these bags hoping never to have to buy travel luggage again — for the rest of our lives, if these companies are still around when our kids retire.

Of the 10 flights I booked, Wow Air was the only airline where we paid checked-bag fees, since its carry-on limits were stricter — a total of $200 for our 4 bags, which added up but was still a good deal overall.

Check each airline’s carry-on rules before you fly: size, weight and item limits vary widely from one company to another. Your bag has to fit in the metal sizer at the gate to prove it meets the airline’s limits.

Stay Flexible on Departure and Arrival Cities

In Canada, we tend to assume that flying is expensive, and that the farther you go, the more it costs. That’s mostly wrong.

The first myth — that flying is expensive — comes from the fact that in Canada, airlines pay high airport taxes, which they then pass on to their customers. For this reason, it’s often cheaper to cross the border to our southern neighbours to fly.

The second myth, that travelling far is expensive, though close to reality, is also partly a myth. If “far” means Western Europe or Australia, then yes, perhaps, though it’s still debatable. But there are a myriad of destinations where accommodation and food cost next to nothing compared to what we’d pay in the West: a month in Turkey, India or the Philippines could cost as little as $300 per person, not including the flight, without sacrificing much comfort.

While we’re on the subject of tickets, choosing an arrival city reasonably close to your real destination can also save money. Knowing that low-cost airlines operate nearly everywhere in Europe, buying the cheapest ticket to anywhere in Europe, then a second ticket from that city to your final destination, will often save a fair sum. From Canada, a stopover in London is often your best bet. It’s important, though, to leave enough time between your two flights, since missing the second one means no refund. I even recommend leaving a full day between flights — you get to visit a new city, which is a win-win.

Another trick is to book the return flight from a different city than the one you arrived in. For example, an outbound flight Montreal–Paris combined with a return flight Brussels–Montreal on a different airline could save you money compared to a simple round trip Montreal–Paris — because, remember, it doesn’t cost much to travel within Europe.

Stay Flexible on Travel Dates

By now you understand the principle: flexibility is key. If you plan your trip during high season, be prepared to pay high prices. If you don’t, you’re lucky. But that doesn’t mean low season is always cheaper and high season is always more expensive, because you can find good deals in every season. You just have to take the time to search, and have a little luck on your side. Even within the space of a single day, the same flight can double, triple, or quadruple in price. Fortunately, there are tools to help find the best deals.

3 Tools for Finding Cheap Flights

That’s the theory — now for the practice. Wondering how I found such absurdly cheap flights? Here’s how I put it to use.

I use these 3 tools together to find low-cost flights:

• Kayak Explore, for flexibility on destinations;
• Google Flights, for flexibility on dates;
• Wikipedia, to find the airports low-cost airlines actually use.

Kayak Explore

I use Kayak Explore to find discounted destinations from a given city. I love this tool — it reminds me of walking down a Walmart aisle and spotting a big “Low Price” sign. It catches my eye and gets my adrenaline going, right up until I realize it’s just a cheap trinket. I’m a visual person, and low prices grab my attention more than high ones ever could.

As the screenshot below shows, from today’s date, a ticket from London to Bremen, Germany runs $11, to Lourdes in the French Pyrenees $23, or to Malta $57.

Google Flights

I use Google Flights to find discounted dates between two cities. It’s an essential tool if you’re not in a hurry. What I find most useful: you can enter a list of airport codes for departure and another for arrival, and the system finds the best deal across a 3-dimensional matrix — departure city, arrival city, and date.

In the screenshot below, searching from all 6 London airports to the Basel–Zurich–Memmingen–Karlsruhe cluster turned up a few dates at $11 between London Luton and Basel. By the time I took this screenshot and wrote these words 5 minutes later, the price for February 27 had already jumped to $53 — which is why it’s worth searching in a private browser window.

Wikipedia for Low-Cost Routes

Wikipedia can tell you about anything from World War II to the Teletubbies — but what’s genuinely useful for flight hunting is that typing an airport’s name into Wikipedia tells you which low-cost airlines fly there.

Examples: The Method in Action

From Greece to Israel

While searching for a route from Greece to Israel, I spotted a cheap Kayak Explore fare from Cyprus to Tel Aviv. I then checked Wikipedia’s page on Paphos, Cyprus, to see if a flight connected Greece to Paphos — and found Chania, a town on Crete, Greece. I didn’t hesitate: we’d now take the boat from Athens to Crete (with stops in Mykonos and Santorini) for a few days, then fly to Cyprus for just 4 days, since 3 or 5 would have cost more according to Google Flights. From there, on to Israel. In short, by staying flexible on dates and cities, I connected Greece to Israel for less than a direct flight — and picked up two unplanned stops, Crete and Cyprus, along the way.

From Basel to Berlin

It’s important not to fall into the trap of reaching a dead end by booking flights too hastily, thinking you’ve found the bargain of the century. If you have to double back on an itinerary made of one-way tickets, you could end up paying more in the end, since low-cost fares aren’t refundable. You have to think strategically, like in a game of chess, and plan 3 or 4 moves ahead. For example, flying out of Basel, Switzerland, I was looking for an intermediate destination that would let us visit the area around Prague, Czech Republic (within about a 500 km radius), before heading to another intermediate city on the way to Greece. My research tools offered excellent prices to Prague or Dresden, Germany for the dates I wanted — but since I was counting on renting a car for a road trip in the area, and it’s cheaper to return the car to the same rental location, I also had to pick a destination that let us leave cheaply too. Unfortunately, neither Prague nor Dresden offered a good deal under those conditions. So I had to compromise and choose Berlin (1st chess move), which offered a good price to Sofia, Bulgaria (2nd chess move) — which we’d then use as a base to visit the Balkans.

Heading to Greece

From Sofia, we booked flights to Athens for $64 for 4 people. I’d originally planned to visit Turkey after Greece, but I realized a flight from Athens to Istanbul was much more expensive than Istanbul to Athens for the dates we wanted, so I chose to go to Istanbul first (move 3), since we could take a bus or overnight sleeper train from Sofia under a starry sky and wake up in Istanbul, serenaded by birdsong and the scent of spices from the markets… okay, I got a little carried away there. In short, we’d visit Turkey before flying from Istanbul to Athens (move 4).

To sum up: I connected Basel to Athens via Berlin and Sofia, visiting Turkey along the way instead of after Greece — all for 120 CAD per person.

Conclusion

I hope this gives you a clear sense of how to use these 3 tools. I know my method is perhaps not the best or the most ideal one, as there are other tools that may suit your needs better. After all, not everyone has the same degree of flexibility. But I’m confident this method can help you find some very cheap deals. From there, it’s up to you to explore other tools and compare them. But remember my saying: “Spending an hour to save $100 is equivalent to earning $100 an hour after tax.” Design yourself an efficient research routine to save dozens of dollars in a few minutes — but don’t waste more time just to save a few extra pennies. I’d rather spend that time with the people I love. Because on the flip side, as my other saying goes:

It’s best to stop searching once you’ve spent an hour to save $2. — Poly

This itinerary covers only the first 5 months of our round-the-world trip — I hadn’t yet booked the rest when I wrote this. I wasn’t expecting deals this good in Asia, but who knows. To be continued.