I’m based in the UK and my default place to start looking for flights is skyscanner - after seeing your recommendations in this discussion, I’ll likely be pricing up a trip to Croatia soon.
I know that some people swear by google flights and I’ve heard of others finding cheap flights using AI. Does it depend where you’re flying to (international or domestic) or where you’re based?
Are there some great websites in the US and Canada that I may not be aware of?
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We always use Skyscanner. Having compared other comparison sites over the years we always end up back at Skyscanner for all flights-both short and long haul.
If you are in the UK then you are probably aware of the travel journalist Simon Calder. His advice is to use Google Flights and Skyscanner, then to try whenever possible to book directly with an airline on their website and avoid OTAs (Online Travel Agents). Why? Because if things go wrong e.g. a cancelled flight, if you have booked with the airline itself then you will get much better support than if you’ve booked with a OTA. You might save a little with an OTA, but there’s a lot of value in being able to deal directly with a airline.
I’ve experienced this myself when I flew with Condor to Mexico and booked using Booking.com. My return flight was cancelled and Condor didn’t offer any help and told me to contact Booking.com. I did that and was told to contact Condor. I was able to sort everything myself and booked AirCanada to London via Toronto. Condor reimbursed me for cost of those flights and compensated me, about 600 Euros.
@Mark_B, we always buy flights direct from airlines. But we have experimented with various flight price search engines. We find the Saved Search function on Google Flights to be really useful (notifications if flight price falls). We have recently used SkyScanner quite a bit.
Re flights to Canada, we find that Westjet flights are more affordable and comfortable than many flights. Calgary is their main hub so handy for those heading to Rockies. Several UK airports fly direct to Calgary. For Toronto, Vancouver, otherwise then other airlines are available. Same flight search engines.
Re Croatia, airline may depend on destination. To Zagreb, we found Ryanair to be cheap and cheerful. Enjoy!
If you use Google to check flights, enter your starting airport, but leave the destination airport blank. If you do that and hit search without entering dates, then Google will show you the cheapest flights available to wherever from your starting airport, for the next six months.
I have compared the major flight platforms (including Skyscanner) extensively as part of our regular savings section in our newsletter. Over the past 2 years I have booked our many flights on either Trip.com or direct with the airlines about 80:20. Trip.com has more helpful bells and whistles/Trip Coins and excellent customer service and has been consistently cheaper than Skyscanner on the routes we’ve flown. Europe- Asia- Middle East - Australia. My other favourite was Wayaway.io but we’ve not used them since they stopped their paid ‘Plus’ option where we got cashback.
Book direct with the airline. Always take in consideration the cost of luggage when comparing flights. And lastly how much it costs to get to and from the airports or parking costs. Sometimes the travel to (and from) is more expensive than the actual flights. Eg. Luton.
Maybe more than anyone wants to know – matrix.itasoftware.com is the engine that google flights works on. Google bought itasoftware in 2010 or 2011. The advantage of matrix is that you can either do a simple search or add qualifiers - connecting city, dates over a time frame, min/max connection times. Some are available in google flights but many are not. Matrix does create multi-airline itins. Find the itin you want on matrix then book on the airline or OTA web site. Matrix gives you the booking codes by flight and even the fare construction that you can give to the ticketing site.
When I was chasing miles and FF status, matrix was the way to find the best itins to maximize miles and minimize cost. Matrix can be slow. But you can get hundreds of flight options even combining carriers.
A fairly complete list of the commands is at ITA Matrix Explained - A Guide to the ITA Matrix Codes with Examples or ITA Matrix Advanced Codes & Hacks - The Travel Pointers
You can also search for video explainers on youtube.
It is how I booked some US to Asia trips in premium economy via Paris with stopovers in Europe. I’d get a week in Hong Kong and a week in Copenhagen for $2000-2500. (I just tried to reproduce one of those trips and it came up $5000+ (which is $2900 in 2010 dollars so it seems to still work). If you don’t like details, stop reading now! Fare 1: Carrier KL ALA47NPP RDU to HKG (rules)
Passenger type ADT, ROUND-TRIP fare, booking code A
Covers RDU-CDG (Premium Economy), CDG-HKG (Premium Economy)
$1,270.00 Fare 2: Carrier KL SLA73NPP HKG to RDU (rules)
Passenger type ADT, ROUND-TRIP fare, booking code S, Y
Covers HKG-AMS (Premium Economy), AMS-CPH (Economy), CPH-JFK (Premium Economy), JFK-RDU (Premium Economy)
$2,670.00
Then taxes and fees add another $1200. Fare Construction (can be useful to travel agents)
RDU KL X/PAR KL HKG M 1270.00ALA47NPP KL X/AMS KL CPH KL X/NYC KL RDU M 1870.00SLA73NPP 1S800.00 NUC 3940.00 END ROE 1.00 XT 7.39YC 7.00XY 3.84XA 45.80US 11.20AY 3.90FR 40.00QX 20.60G3 25.70HK 8.40I5 14.60CJ 16.90RN 40.90DK 37.10ZO 52.00YQ 768.00YR 9.00XF RDU4.50 JFK4.50
35+ year Road Warrior here. We didn’t always have these tools (ie the Internet ), but now that we do: THIS, 1000%
(As a side-bonus/strategy, if you can afford the investment, I use a premium credit card with travel benefits to pay for all my directly-booked flights, who will often help intervene with airlines if/when I really find myself in a bind.)
Can you elaborate on what you’re saying here, Elsie?
It’s true that flying on a Tue/Wed is often cheaper, as is staying over a Saturday — it’s meant to squeeze $$ out of business travelers. The day you actually book the ticket, however, doesn’t change the price —at least not any longer. (That said, booking anything less than 3 weeks in advance, the prices typically start to go up significantly week-by-week; again, they’re squeezing business travelers.)
I don’t really understand at all what you mean by using older technology or “non-Apple devices” to search and book tickets, or why that would be cheaper. I use both Apple & Windows — searching side-by-side does not change the price of a ticket…although tagging a ticket and beginning the checkout process does put a hold on it, potentially raising the price of a subsequent ticket you might try to book on a 2nd machine until the first booking is released editfrom the agent’s “system.”
We’re like @Lokstar in that we try others and always end up back on Skyscanner as a general benchmark. Also agree with @TheEnglishFlaneur that booking direct with the airline (even if you’ve used a search tool) gives you more protection and often better service. There are a few airlines that Skyscanner doesn’t pick up though so sometimes another comparison helps, for example Thai Lion Air doesn’t feature but you can find them on the Air Asia app and they’re often cheaper than anyone else. @Maggie8K’s open search tip on Google flights is brilliant!! #everydaysaschoolday
We have done experiments. I have an old Motorola mobile. My husband has a state of art iPhone. The prices are different when searching. I don’t know why. The “ether” seems to pick up the more expensive kit and charge accordingly. We have also found searching for flights on a Tuesday or Wednesday gives cheaper prices than searching for flights at the weekend. I can’t explain either phenomenon but that is our experience
I can only guess that the sites are applying some sort of dynamic pricing model.
It makes sense that trips are more often booked on the weekend, therefore the sites algorithm may increase there prices slightly to benefit from this.
I may be misremembering, but several years ago when a UK based travel agent went out of business (Thomas Cook) the cost of holidays on their competitor websites jumped massively as all the Thomas Cook customers were trying to rebook with other agents.
I suspect the influx of website traffic and attempted bookings in a short space of time, caused the costs to jump significantly.
), but now that we do: 
THIS, 1000% 