12 Tips for Cheap Last-Minute Flights Guaranteed To Save You Money

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Booking flights is arguably the easiest part of planning a vacation. However, it’s usually the most expensive, too. Unfortunately, there’s no denying that flight tickets can be way overpriced. In fact, high ticket prices often put most travelers off visiting a destination.

To make matters worse, booking your flights in advance is typically cheaper, making it harder to find good deals at the last minute. Luckily, though, there are still things you can do to find excellent deals at the last minute. To learn more, here are 12 money-saving tips that’ll help you find cheap last-minute flights. These tips will help you save money and find the best flights.

Be Flexible

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Our number one tip for finding cheap flights at the last minute is to be as flexible as possible. While it’s not always easy to be flexible, it will give you more freedom to choose the best flights. If you have a specific day or date that you want to travel or a particular destination in mind, you’ll be much more limited.

By being flexible, you can choose from a broader range of destinations, identify the most affordable flights, and take advantage of any flight ticket deals. An excellent way to find the best flights when playing around with potential travel dates is to use a flight comparison website like Skyscanner.

Don’t Fly Directly

If you have the luxury of being flexible with your travel dates and destination, you can save by not flying directly. Being flexible with your route is another brilliant way to find cheap flights at the last minute. For example, it might be more affordable to take a budget airline flight from the United States to Ireland before booking a cheaper flight to London from Ireland.

To find the cheapest flights using this method, research the cost of reaching your final destination via a direct flight. Then, use Google Flights to look at prices to nearby airports. If the difference is significant, it’s worth looking at the difference in cost to travel to the other airport first.

Keep Your List of Potential Destinations Broad

Last-Minute Flights List of Potential Destinations Broad — © Nazzu / Adobe Stock

If you can’t be as flexible as you’d hoped because you must travel on a specific date, don’t worry; you can still find cheap last-minute flights. In this instance, the best thing you can do is cast a wider net regarding potential destinations. You’ll likely not find a fantastic last-minute deal if you focus on one specific destination.

Therefore, casting a wider net can increase your chances of finding the most affordable flights. On Skyscanner, you can select your travel date and where to fly from. You can then filter the results to show the destinations in flight cost order. This is a great way to quickly find the cheapest place to fly to on your travel dates.

Keep an Eye Out for Special Deals

Last-Minute Flights Eye Out for Special Deals — © 孝通葛 / Adobe Stock

Before you nail down your final destination or start looking for specific flights and travel dates, make sure you’re signed up for some newsletters. Joining airline and last-minute deal websites’ mailing lists is an easy way to access the best flight deals.

Admittedly, not every deal you’re sent will suit your travel plans, but keeping a close eye on the best deals will ensure you don’t miss out on any incredible last-minute bargains. Often, cheap flight deals are only available for a short space of time (usually 24 hours). Therefore, you’ll likely miss out if you aren’t constantly searching the web for deals. Signing up for a newsletter eliminates that risk.

Hide Your Location

Understanding how airlines operate is an essential part of the money-saving process. Competition, demand, and purchasing power impact ticket prices, as does your location. As you search for flights, your IP address exposes your location, which causes airlines and travel agencies to quote you accordingly.

You can find the best flight prices if you hide your location using a Virtual Private Network (VPN). A VPN service won’t directly impact flight prices but will allow you to look for cheap flights in more markets. Airline websites and travel agencies will optimize the content you see based on the VPN’s server location instead of your actual location. Surf Shark is one of the best VPNs on the market.

Search for Your Flights in Another Currency

Last-Minute Flights Flights in Another Currency — © Martin / Adobe Stock

Before you commit and book the flight you’ve found, it’s worth checking to see if it’s cheaper to book it in a foreign currency. Most budget airlines make travelers pay for their flights in the currency of the country they depart from, but not always. Many airlines have an option that allows travelers to change their currency.

If you turn off the location setting on your device or use a VPN, you could use this to your advantage. Booking your flights in a foreign currency can save you a lot of money, but you must use a credit card with no foreign transaction fees. Otherwise, the money you save will be lost.

Search for Flights in Incognito Mode

Last-Minute Flights Flights in Incognito Mode — © Patryk Kosmider / Adobe Stock

Another excellent way to find cheap last-minute flights is to search in incognito mode. If you’ve been searching for flights for a while, you’ve probably noticed the most affordable airfare suddenly disappears or increases. Unfortunately, this happens because cookies track our searches and feed the most popular back to the airfare suppliers.

This then increases once affordable flight prices. You can avoid this issue by searching for flights in incognito mode. This genius tool works the same as any average internet page. However, every time you reopen an incognito window, the cookies are reset, which allows you to keep looking at the cheapest flights available without the airfare supplier hiking up the prices.

Fly With Budget Airlines

Many years ago, if travelers wanted to fly between continents, they were mostly stuck with expensive traditional airlines. Luckily, that’s no longer the case. Now, we’re blessed with budget airlines that offer affordable travel worldwide. Using budget airlines to book your vacation flights is an easy way to find cheap flights.

These cheaper airlines almost always beat bigger airlines for cheap tickets. You’ll have to sacrifice some comfort, but it’s worth it for the savings you’ll make. Often, you’ll have less legroom, and free food, drinks, and movies aren’t included either. A top tip to save money on your flight is to pack snacks and drinks. Make sure you avoid any hidden costs like checked luggage restrictions, too.

Purchase Tickets Individually

One of the biggest mistakes you can make when traveling in a group is booking all your tickets together, especially if you’re looking for the cheapest flights. Airlines often show the highest ticket prices for group booking, so you’ll pay more than you need to. Airlines do this because they want to sell their tickets at the highest fare bucket, so they list group prices for the highest fare bucket.

For example, if a group of friends buys four seats next to each other, three of the seats costing $300, and the final seat costing $400, the airline will charge $400 for every seat. With this in mind, always search for your flights as a single person.

Check Flight Prices From Nearby Airports

If you’re booking a last-minute flight, it’s often a good idea to search for your flights from multiple airports, if possible. While it can be tempting to search for flights from the closest airport, you risk missing potential deals. Therefore, widen your search to include other airports from which you don’t mind flying.

That way, you can compare prices from multiple airports to gauge where it’s cheaper to fly from. However, consider the extra transport costs for the increased distance. It doesn’t make sense to book a cheaper flight if you’re then going to use the savings you make traveling the extra distance.

Book Early

The term ‘last-minute’ means something different to everyone. To some travelers, the last minute might be three months. Meanwhile, other travelers might consider last-minute as a week or less. While it can be tempting to leave it to the very last minute, there is a sweet spot when airlines begin to either lower or increase fares.

Unfortunately, flight prices tend to rise the closer you get to departure, so booking your flight a week before you travel is only sometimes a great idea. While you might find a handful of spectacular last-minute deals, your options will be limited. Generally, the best time to book your flight is around two months before your departure. However, this isn’t a concrete rule, so always research.

Don’t Hang Around

One of our top tips for anyone wanting to book cheap last-minute flights is to avoid hanging around. While it can be tempting to see if prices drop further or if any other deals crop up, we don’t recommend it if you’ve already found a good deal. If you know where and when you want to go and you’ve discovered affordable flights, get them booked!

Travelers often fall into the trap of hanging on to see if flight prices drop, but it’s a myth. Very rarely do flights get cheaper. If anything, they’re more likely to get more expensive. As a result, you should always pull the trigger if you’re happy with the flights you’ve found.

We compare all airlines with this search engine to get the lowest price possible for flights. You can also set ‘Everywhere’ as destination and it gives you the cheapest flight anywhere on any given day or find out when is the lowest price to fly to a specific destination.

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