Finding a cheap airfare is part knowing where to look, part timing but often mostly luck. The keys to finding cheap flights is flexibility – if you are flexible as to where you go,  when and for how long (and are willing to book well in advance) you may well pay next to nothing. The more restrictions you have on when and where you want to travel the more planning, forethought or sheer good luck is necessary to bag a cheap fare, but the sites below will help.

Domestic Flights

Adioso is a great search engine because of the sheer flexibility it offers. Adioso allows you to search for the cheapest fares in a month, say ‘Melbourne to Sydney in January‘,  or the cheapeast flights it can find to anywhere in a month – ‘Melbourne to Anywhere September‘ – or even just ‘Sydney to Anywhere‘. It has limitations – it only tracks budget carriers and can generally only search about nine months out, but it is a great way to survey all the options available, especially if you are flexible enough to be able plan your vacations around cheap fares or need to find the cheapest option for a particular period.

If you know where and more or less when you want to fly domestically IWantThatFlight and WotFlight allow you compare all the domestic options on a particular day at a glance, and to easily compare other dates within the same month.

International Flights

When booking international flights the old standbys are Zuji, Expedia and Webjet.  Beware of commissions or ‘booking fees’ that are added to the fare and be mindful of the fact that these sites do not track budget airlines. Perhaps the most flexible way to search airfares on full-service airlines is ITA Software (a tool provided by the software company which provides the data used by most of the other airfare search engines) provides a very easy to use matrix of the cheapest fares by date.

Budget airlines can sell fares for half or the price (or even less) of the established airlines – for budget international flights from Australia check AirAsiaX and Jetstar. Keep in mind that they fly from a smaller airport which may be further out of town, baggage and food are likely to be extra, the fares are unlikely to be flexible and once on board space is likely to be at a premium.

When it comes to searching for international flights on budget airlines try Adioso (which allows searches like Brisbane to International), Momondo, Kayak or Sidestep, all of which include at least the biggest budget airlines, but also check a site like WhichBudget, to find other budget airlines which fly to that country or city.

Round the World Flights

Best Flights is a great overview of the round the world options and the rules and limitations of each. The major airline alliances, One World and Star Alliance, also offer online planning tools which allow you easily price a particular itinerary. Keep in mind it is now possible to fly round the world on budget airlines, and with enough planning this may work out cheaper than a conventional round the world ticket.

Other Considerations

It is well worth sigining up to the email alerts for the airlines you may be interested as sale fares sell out very quickly, or may be available only for short periods.

If you are considering flying an unfamiliar airline SkyTrax is a great resource, containing reviews of various airlines, many of them written by frequent travellers. SeatGuru will suggest the best seats on each type of aircraft (and more importantly help you avoid the worst!) The TravelZoo Top 20 deals of the week will often highlight the best domestic and international airfare deals of the past week.