Site for planning a flight and comparing prices?

[EliteRetard]

I need to head to the north east, like New York, Main, or Massachusetts sometime between say June 27 and July 2 and then leaving July 10 or later.

Wondering if there's a good website to easily find the cheapest date and location to fly. I rarely fly so don't know what I'm doing, my search is turning up sites that require specific airports and dates.

 

[cubby1223]

I've been using Kayak to search flights. Their search engine lets you select "nearby airports" to compare to, and breaks down prices by date in up to a 7-day window (+-3 days from specified date). With their "nearby airports" option, when I search for flights Chicago to New York City, it groups together flights departing from O'Hare, Midway, & Milwaukee, and arriving at Newark, La Guardia, & JFK into a single search.

Sometimes you hit upon things you don't expect. Last year I wanted to fly Chicago -> Newark, and Kayak directed me to a Chicago -> Trenton flight for $100 round trip with Frontier.

 

[SearchMaster]

I usually use flights.google.com.

 

[boomerang]

I usually use flights.google.com.

This. Click on the calendar icon by the date and choose Flexible dates and you will be presented with a grid. You can find the best price by moving the dates around.

 

[purbeast0]

national flights i pretty much only use southwest because they are the cheapest most of the time + have free baggage, so you don't get tacked on an additional $50 - $70 just for packing. keep in mind those sites that search all flights at once don't typically search southwest.

 

[RossMAN]

https://www.hipmunk.com/flights

 

[tsupersonic]

If you have an Android or iOS device, use Hopper. You pick your source and destination, and it color codes (on a month calendar) the cheapest days to fly.

 

[michal1980]

I usually use flights.google.com.

This. Click on the calendar icon by the date and choose Flexible dates and you will be presented with a grid. You can find the best price by moving the dates around.

agreed very nice tool

I also use skiplagged.com to see if I can squeeze out a deal.

 

[RossMAN]

If you have an Android or iOS device, use Hopper. You pick your source and destination, and it color codes (on a month calendar) the cheapest days to fly.

Thanks, what a cool and easy to use app. I love that I didn't have to register just to view fares/trends.

 

[EliteRetard]

Thanks for all the input, really appreciate it.

Kayak is the winner for now, was the only option that got close to what I was looking for that I could figure out and use. So far has provided the cheapest round trip prices.

I couldn't figure out the google flights page at all. There was no calendar icon or flexible date option...same with hipmunk. Again, appreciate the input.

Didn't get to try hopper, since I don't have a "smartphone".

Thought I needed one for skiplagged at first, but realized I could use it on a PC. No flexible date option and no option to check multiple airports. Since I couldn't get a good proper search I was only getting higher prices, about $200 more round trip.

I guess I want to put out a challenge, can anybody beat ~$375 round trip based on my criteria? Again I'm looking to travel to the north east coast, New York NY, Hartford CT, Boston MA, Portland ME, etc. sometime around the 27th June (+/- 3 days) and returning on July 11th (+/- 3 days). I'll be departing/returning to the SEA airport in Seattle WA.

The current cheapest ticket is non-stop, but I'd be willing to make a stop or two for significant savings. I may need up to 4 tickets. If there's a stupendous deal that falls outside these ranges I'll consider it (I missed a deal for $28 one way ticket to NY).

 

[dullard]

Google flights has a Frontier Airlines flight to Philly for $303. But that is a bit too far south and requires a really long layover in Denver. Probably not worth it unless you absolutely must have a cheap flight at all costs.

If you are that sensitive to flight prices, you might want to consider waiting a bit to purchase. Flight prices tend to be cheapest 3 to 6 weeks out. Waiting is always a gamble though with oil prices plunging I don't really see flights getting dramatically more expensive either. In a few weeks, when you get closer to the dates, Kayak will have a price confidence window at the top left that shows whether it thinks you should buy or wait.

 

[EliteRetard]

Google flights has a Frontier Airlines flight to Philly for $303. But that is a bit too far south and requires a really long layover in Denver. Probably not worth it unless you absolutely must have a cheap flight at all costs.

If you are that sensitive to flight prices, you might want to consider waiting a bit to purchase. Flight prices tend to be cheapest 3 to 6 weeks out. Waiting is always a gamble though with oil prices plunging I don't really see flights getting dramatically more expensive either. In a few weeks, when you get closer to the dates, Kayak will have a price confidence window at the top left that shows whether it thinks you should buy or wait.

Thanks for the heads up.

I think New York is the furthest south I'd go, unless the ticket were like $200 round trip or something.

While I can afford the ~$400 ticket, saving another $100 could be very helpful to me. On top of that, I may be travelling with a group of other people, and even a mild price savings can become a large discount when paying for 4 people (or more?)...enough to pay for a rental car or some such to drive where we need to go.

 

[marmasatt]

Get someone who has Airline Miles or reward points like Southwest. They are allowed to gift them to you. I paid for my gift to someone on the FS/FT forum a few years ago. :sneaky: Saved about 30% off the face value of the tickets and the guy got to launder his points/miles into real money...

 

[MongGrel]

Came into the thing late, and the wife doesn't even do travel these days, but asked her for grins and giggles and Southwest was the first thing she said.

Then Kayak if it's a place Southwest does not serve.

 

[Exterous]

Thanks for all the input, really appreciate it.

Kayak is the winner for now, was the only option that got close to what I was looking for that I could figure out and use. So far has provided the cheapest round trip prices.

You may want to take the flight option you find on Kayak and then compare it to that airline's website as airlines will frequently offer prices lower than you can find on an OTA. For example for our flight from BOS to DTW every OTA I checked was reporting Delta's cost being $110. When I looked at that exact same flight on Delta.com it was $87. Carriers are also more likely to be flexible with tickets purchased directly from them as opposed to an OTA when various issues are encountered. Personally if the cost is close I'll pay slightly more to book direct with the carrier

Also - Southwest won't show up on those websites so you may want to compare the cheapest flight you found with a comparable Southwest flight. Sometimes they are cheaper sometimes not.

 

[Exterous]

Flight prices tend to be cheapest 3 to 6 weeks out.

Thats going to vary a lot by route and capacity. The higher the surplus capacity and the higher the competition typically the farther out you can book. The domestic 'best price' range tended to be between 5 and 16 weeks out. Keep in mind that range was for 2015. The range for 2014 was 4 to 14 so it does fluctuate. Still at 3 weeks out most routes are going to have gone up in price.

General trends at your destination affects price as well. Leisure destinations tend to be busy (and therefore more expensive) thursday and friday in bound and Sunday evening Monday morning out bound but slow Sat midday\evening and all of Sunday for inbound and slow mid week outbound. Business locations are very busy inbound Sunday night\Monday morning and fairly slow Tuesday and Thursday outbound. If your dates are flexible its easy to take advantage of this