Tips to find cheap flights: the how to edition

The how-to for personal cheap flight search 

If there is one thing we universally love, it is a cheap flight. I mean, who doesn't love saving some money on international and domestic flights. 

Being a poorly funded student, I have had to get creative with flight hunting. Sure there are the programs like flights from home that you can pay for, but where's the fun in that. There is something about finding inexpensive flights that give me a sense of accomplishment. 

Recently I was talking with one of my fellow nurses about my upcoming travel plans and was shocked that she did not know one of the easiest (at least, it's relatively easy once you know the trick) ways to look for flights. 

My go-to method of searching is, of course, google flights. Few seem to know about the flexible date and location search. I use this trick to plan all of my larger international trips.

If the concept of google flights is alien to you, I will try my best to simplify it. Of course, I have clipped in some images to make my explanation easier to follow!

Steps to finding cheap flights anytime and anywhere:

1) Visit Google Flights and enter either your home airport or the closest international airport. 

2) Do not add a destination. I know it seems counterintuitive, but trust me on this. What you want to hit is the explore button. 

3) From here, google should show you all possible flights within a set time frame. Now if you know when your trip is, this is perfect. If you are open to travel at any point, hit the calendar icon and select the flexible dates icon on the top left. Now you can choose a specific month and length of trip!

4) Filter! This is my best advice. If you know that you want to fly with SkyTeam or one of its affiliated airlines (because, duh, you want those flight miles to go toward your account), limit the search to only those flights. Limit the search if you have a budget of $800 for an international flight. This will save you time and energy.

Now, this is not a surefire way to find cheap flights, but it is the method I have been using for the past few years. With this method, I found tickets to Vietnam on JAL (an excellent airline) for $800 RT and tickets for Nepal and India for $700 RT with Singapore and Virgin Air (again, great airlines)! I recommend popping on every now and then to check since flight prices are so volatile and ever-changing! 

Happy hunting!