When I took my first international trip to London and Paris in my early twenties (this was before Luke), a huge chunk of my budget (which I already could barely afford) went to the airfare. I paid $1,500 for a round trip ticket from St. Louis to London, then from Paris back to St. Louis. At the time, I thought that was just how much international tickets cost. After all, a ticket to Chicago from St. Louis can easily cost $300, and that is a 45 minute flight!
We paid $750 round trip for our tickets to Scotland, but that was after we originally bought $1,200 tickets only for the price to drop 3 days later. We managed to talk the airline into giving us vouchers but that put us in a bind to need to use those vouchers within a year or lose them.
Then, I spoke to a coworker who was from England who told me about Scotts Cheap Flights. It is a free subscription that sends you emails whenever international flight deals come up. It includes all incredibly useful information- such as the time frame, the airline and even some useful tips on the destination. There is a Premium option, which I highlight recommend, that not only sends you even more emails but sends you all emails earlier than the free subscribers. This can be key when high demand flights come out or when mistake fares are published. The premium subscription is incredibly affordable at $25 for 6 months (they also have options for monthly or quarterly). We got flights from St. Louis to Spain round trip for $360 per person – a savings of over $1,000 apiece!! You can customize what emails you get based off of where your outbound airport is or where you want your destination to be, but if you don’t mind a lot of emails I recommend not limiting it. Just delete the email if you aren’t interested!
A few more deals we have gotten from Scotts Cheap Flights:
- Nonstop flights from EWR (New York City) to Athens for $365
- Nonstop flights from Boston to Lisbon, Portugal for $460
Other fantastic places to find flight deals come from Twitter- this is one of the only reasons I have a personal twitter, and it’s a good one. Follow and turn on your notifications for: The Points Guy, Airfare Watchdog and The Flight Deal. The Points Guy in particular gives notifications on deals using rewards miles. I’m sure there are many more, and please feel free to let us know if you have any other sources of cheap flights!
One last thing on flight deals—many times you will not find one from smaller airports. Boston, New York, Dallas, LA, Chicago and Atlanta are the ones I see most often. Being from St. Louis, this can be a bummer. But! If you have a way to get to those cities it can be well worth it. Remember those United vouchers we got from Scotland? We used them to get to Washington DC for our flight to Italy and back from New York. We used Southwest points to get to and from New York City for our trip to Greece. Yes, you have to get your bags and recheck them, but if you have a specific time and place you want to go this is a good option. Play around with your inbound and outbound cities- choose the time and date that works best and make sure that you can catch a domestic flight back home. We typically give it about 3-4 hours as a layover.
What about you? What are your secrets to finding the best flight deal?
