Cheap flights - where to buy and how to search
The fact that you need to look for air tickets on the Internet seems to be clear to everyone. There are a lot of advantages - starting with the fact that you can start monitoring prices six months in advance, ending with the fact that you can get all the prices for various flights at once and analyze which is more suitable. Where to buy cheap air tickets, I think, is also no longer a question - via the Internet using a bank card (there are other payment methods). You do not need to go anywhere and the purchase takes 5 minutes, and after another 5 minutes, the electronic ticket comes to the post office, and it is not even necessary to print it. However, I will still tell you where to buy and how to search.
The content of the article
How to search for cheap flights
There are 3 options for searching for air tickets:
- on the websites of specific airlines
- on the websites of airline booking agencies
- and on aggregator sites, which are also called ticket search engines
Airline Websites
The easiest and most time consuming option. Search forums and blogs which airlines fly to the country you need and go one by one to their sites and check the availability and cost of tickets. You can also search among companies low-cost airlines (low-cost airlines), they are the ones who offer cheap flights.
The option is applicable when you know exactly which airlines are right for you, or are waiting for promotions on sale of air tickets from specific airlines. In other cases, it takes too long.
Websites of agencies for the sale and booking of air tickets
Such agencies have agreements with airlines, and through their search form on the site, you can see all the available offers from several dozen airlines at once. This is much more convenient than walking through the many airline websites and checking the availability and cost of the flights you need. However, not a single agency has a complete list of all airlines, besides, some agencies also have a commission for using the services, although it is small compared to the price of the flight. And in order not to pay a commission, you can always see the name of the airline and the flight number in the search results, and find it already on the website of the airline itself. True, it often happens the other way around, the price in the agency is lower than on the official website of the airline. This is because there are special rates for agencies..
This option is akin to going to an air ticket office, which, in principle, is the same, only done via the Internet. It's just that now all self-respecting air ticket offices sell tickets not only for cash in their office, but also on their website via the Internet..
Flight search engines (aggregators)
There is an even more convenient option for finding cheap flights - search aggregators. These sites do not sell anything, but only search, somewhat reminiscent of Yandex or Google. Flight search engines are connected to several bases of agencies and to the bases of most airlines at once, thus, in the search results you get not just a list of the flights you need, but also in which agency how much does the ticket cost.
No commission is charged for using these services. Therefore, after the search, you select the desired flight and are transferred, either directly to the airline's website, or to the website of the booking agency, depending on what you have chosen..
The most famous search engines: Aviasales.ru, Skyscanner.ru, Momondo.ru
Cheap flights - where to buy and how to search
How we search for flights
We mainly use only the search engines Aviasales.ru and Skyscanner.ru, we like them the most in terms of functionality and design. And despite the fact that the agencies to which all these search engines are connected are different, flights and airfare prices are very similar, if not the same..
Unfortunately, the aggregators will not include absolutely all air tickets and all airlines, mainly we are talking about low-cost, which you just need to know, since they are not in any databases of any agencies or search engines. Therefore, the algorithm of our actions is as follows:
- We open the website of the airline ticket search engine Aviasales.ru and look for tickets for the required dates. In some cases, we also go to Skyscanner.ru to make sure if there is anything else interesting.
- At the same time, on forums and other travel resources, we are looking for information about low-cost airlines flying to the city we need. For example, in Asia it is AirAsia.com, which has practically no alternative for local flights..
- We analyze prices on all sites and choose the right one, including multiple flights (for example, regular flight + local), since it often turns out to be cheaper than flying directly to the final destination.
It seems that he told everything about cheap air tickets, where to buy and how to look, it remains only to give more specific advice on how to look for the cheapest air tickets. In order not to repeat myself, I will just give a link where I have already collected everything in a single list - How to buy the cheapest flights.