You are interested in travelling abroad, potentially on one of our group trips! We understand that booking the trip is just the beginning, This is a journey, and there is planning involved. One of the benefits of booking a group trip is knowing that all you have to do is show up, and the rest will be taken care of!
What about the flights, you may ask. The founders of The Hybrid Tours grew up living around the world and have both travelled extensively, and these are their top tips for finding the best flights.
Start Early
How early is early? Once you know the dates of your trip, we suggest you start browsing right away to get an idea of the prices at the moment. However, don’t book your flight just yet. Booking 10 months in advance, for example, won’t help. We suggest booking a flight 2-3 months in advance if it’s an international flight (coming from another continent to your destination). If you’re flying during the high season, add an extra month or two.
One of our favourite ways to know if we have found a good deal is by using the fluctuating price feature of Google Flights. Just by scrolling to the bottom of the page of your flight results, you will be able to see for yourself if you have found a good deal or not.
I’ve added an example here for a roundtrip flight from New York, New York to Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina. According to this graph, if a roundtrip flight is between $550 - $760 USD for the specific dates I chose, then I am paying a typical/reasonable price for my flight. Anything above $760 USD is not a good deal. If the price is below $550, I should buy it right away before it’s too late.
Flexibility with Dates
Can you take an extra day off? If you’re travelling from outside of the continent you’re flying into, you might want to make the most of your trip and add an extra day or two. If this is possible for you, it will allow you to play around with dates to see which prices and flights might be the most suitable ones. Maybe you are flying to a destination that only has direct flights twice per week, and the date flexibility will allow you to take advantage of that.
The date flexibility setting is a feature that most flight search engines have incorporated into their platforms. You can state as part of the settings that you have the flexibility of travelling 1-5 days before and after your dates, or you can also browse through their calendar to see which options they think are most suitable. Our favorite platforms to use this feature with are Kiwi.com, Kayak and Google Flights.
Set up Price-drop Alerts
We sometimes don’t have the time to be constantly browsing on platforms for the best prices and connections. Google Flights and the mobile app Hopper allow you to choose your required dates, along with your departure and destination, and will send you notifications once the price has dropped, since it’s common for flight prices to fluctuate. This makes it incredibly simple to allow technology and algorithms to help you make the best decision.
Use Points and Travel Hack
For those who are not from the USA, using points to travel might seem like a daunting task. People normally assume that this is something that’s exclusive to North American citizens, but we are here to show you that could not be further from the truth. One of our co-founders made a video explaining how you can get started using points to travel.
We highly suggest using Point.me to figure out the best way to maximize the amount of points that you’re using, along with the best travel connections. As long as you know that the points you have can be used for airline redemption, you can use this platform to help you plan your trip in the best way possible.
Alternate Airports
If you live in a city that is not a main hub, flying to a different continent can be time-consuming and expensive because of the lack of suitable connections. This is where we recommend flying out from an alternate airport if you have the time. Take a train or drive to an airport nearby that will offer more international flights.
If you live in a large city, take advantage of the multiple airports the region offers. Someone from New York City can fly from any of the airports across the tristate area. London has 6 airports available to its citizens’ disposal. Kiwi.com and Google Flights are by far our favorite websites to use this with. It allows you to search for flights using multiple airports as your departure point.
While these tips might seem like basic knowledge for some, we think it’s important to give you updated versions on what works for the year 2023. If you are joining one of our trips, do not forget that as part of our services we are able to give you advice on which flights and connections might work best for your personal situation. We hope our top tips for finding the best flights were useful to you, and we look forward to seeing you on one of our trips!
