Student Travel: Finding the Cheapest Flight

I love budget traveling and almost everything that comes with it: walking through a ghetto in Costa Rica to save 50 cents on bus transportation (stupid idea, wouldn't recommend), taking a bus around Europe (awesome idea, highly recommended), walking alone after midnight while (slightly) inebriated in a small Belizean village (stupid idea, wouldn't recommend), walking with friends after midnight while (slightly) inebriated in Florence (awesome idea, highly recommended).

You get the point. But regardless of where you’re traveling (and how wise your decisions are while there), there’s one element that unites many budget trips – the cost of the flight, which is usually the biggest single expenditure you’ll make.

As a US student in Germany, I also need to take an international flight to get to my parents once in a while. So I’ve spent a lot of time perusing the internet for the best flight search website, and I am going to tell you the results… as long as you don’t tell anyone else. OK?

There are two ways to go about finding the cheapest flight, one longer and one a little shorter.

Finding cheap flights – the long way

The longer approach to finding cheap flights involves you going to each individual airline’s website and searching there. Oftentimes there are cheaper flights listed on the website, to encourage loyal customers to come back, and you won’t find these on third party flight search tools. This is especially handy if your goal is also to accumulate miles on specific airlines, leading to future discounts. At the same time many airlines are now in massive partnerships for mile programs, so this approach could mean you have to go to every single partner airline and search what flights they offer. So it is a time-consuming process but can be highly rewarding.

Finding cheap flights – the faster way

The faster way to finding the cheapest flight is the best third-party flight tool around (in my opinion): Google Flights, which, as you may guess, is owned by Google. Here you are offered the ability to have huge variability in your flight search. You can say plus or minus several days, or add lots of surrounding airports in your departure and arrival locations, simply by increasing the distance you are willing to travel away from the airport.

There are lots of other tools you can use that make this one of the best and most flexible tools for a cheap flights search. However, there are two drawbacks. First, you cannot buy the tickets directly on the website; you need to go to the airline’s website and find the cheap flights listed there. Second, while this will help you find the absolute cheapest flight, that doesn’t necessarily mean you’re getting the best deal.

Let me explain: obviously there is a value for the air miles you get; you are in some way or another paying for those miles and hoping eventually to get a free flight out of it. But at this low-budget price level, miles programs are hopelessly Balkanised or worse yet, there are no miles schemes at all.

So if you are planning a one-time trip and not planning to do a lot more flying, this is hands-down the best way to find the cheapest flight. If you are planning a lot of flying, then you can still use this tool (or the first method) but look further up in price to find an airline that is in your preferred miles program.

There you have it, my long-researched advice on how to find the cheapest flight for your student trips. Remember, our secret right?