8 Ways to Get Cheap Airline Tickets for Your Next Flight

Most of us have heard about various common ways to get cheap airline tickets for our next flights. Haven’t we? These include booking in advance, flexible travel dates, flying low-cost carriers, and so on.

These ways to get the cheapest airline tickets are indeed fine and work well for most travellers. And you could also save considerably using these ideas.

But what about other ways to get cheap airline tickets that nobody usually speaks about?

If you’re among those travellers who would love to slice a few Dollars off your next air ticket, continue reading. For that, here I’ll be discussing some amazing ways to get the cheapest airline tickets for your next flight.

Pricing of Airline Tickets

The first thing we need to understand while talking about cheap airline tickets is how airlines price them.

Any airline on this planet has to consider several elements before arriving at a price for their air tickets.

The main factor, of course, is the demand for airline seats on a particular route.  The second is the cost of amenities that an airline will provide you while at the airport, in transit and inflight.

The third and most important consideration is taxes and levies of all sorts. Often, taxes and levies work out to as much as the airfare itself or even more.

These come under various categories, such as fuel tax, airport tax, insurance coverage while flying over riskier airspace, and so on.

Despite all these factors, all airlines strive to keep their airfares affordable. They do this to ensure that a maximum number of seats on any flight- or loads- are full.

Then, there are several more considerations. And you could use to get cheap airline tickets available for your next flight.

Ways to Get Cheap Airline Tickets

These ways to get the cheapest airline tickets that I’ll be discussing now are available in most parts of the world. Because airlines operate under various international agreements and treaties, they generally have common procedures for pricing airfares.

1. Fly Indirect or Offline Carriers

Using indirect or offline carriers is my favourite way to get cheap airline tickets.

Let’s start by understanding what indirect carriers are. In simple words, indirect carriers are airlines that don’t offer a direct flight between your city and the destination.

That means you’ll have to change at least one flight between your city and the destination. Since it involves waiting and spending time, indirect carriers generally offer fares that are cheaper than those flying directly between your city and the destination.

Offline carriers don’t operate in your city. Instead, they have cheap flight tickets to your destination from their hubs. This means you’ll have to fly on two or more airlines to get to and from your city to your destination.

Travelling offline carriers can prove cumbersome unless you’re a veteran traveller. Because you’ll have to collect your baggage and sometimes, check-in again at the transit airport. It can also involve longer waits at the transit lounge. Hence, these carriers offer the cheapest flights.

The flipside of using indirect or offline carriers is that you’ll spend some time transiting at various airports.

The bright side: if your transit time is longer than eight hours, an airline has to offer you Stopover Paid by Carrier (STPC) benefits, which include free stay and food at a hotel at the transit point. This allows you to do a quick sightseeing tour in some countries if the airline or visa regulations allow it.

2. Use Frequent Flyer Miles/ Loyalty Points

A whopping 50 trillion loyalty points from airline frequent flyer memberships go to waste every year, according to AOE. Add to that nearly 50 per cent of loyalty points from credit and debit cards that’s never used.

In 2011- or 10 years ago- Americans alone accounted for $16 billion worth of loyalty points being wasted every year. The amount could have easily doubled over the last decade, industry sources claim.

If you’re a member of an airline frequent flyer club or loyalty program of some credit card or debit card, use them to get inexpensive airline tickets. Joining airline frequent flyer programs is very easy.

All you need to do is visit the website of your favourite airline or an alliance such as One World, Star Alliance or Sky Team and register.

You’ll get a frequent flyer membership number. Provide at the time of check-in, and you’ll automatically have points credited to your account.

Also, check rewards and points on your credit card and debit card loyalty programs. You might be already qualifying for a hefty discount flights or even a free airline ticket.

3. Special Discount Categories

Some travel companies might not disclose this immediately. However, airlines offer a lot of discount flights to students, youth travelling for specific purposes, senior citizens and retirees, veterans, persons with special needs and so on.

They also offer group flight discounts if there’s a specific number of people that are travelling with you.

If you’re travelling to attend an event, check if they have an official or designated carrier because they offer special discounted flights to attendees of that event where you can save money on this travelling.

You’ll most likely have to prove that you’re a student or youth travelling for a specific purpose or provide proof of age to get such special flight discounts.

However, airlines are more than willing to offer them if you approach the right ones. Some travel agents could also help you with discount airline ticket bookings.

4. Check for Empty Leg Flights

This system is a bit complicated, but it does work well. Check for empty-leg flights. Generally, you’ll come across empty-leg flights that operate on charter between your city or a nearby one and your destination.

An airline flies an empty-leg flight when it needs to bring passengers from one place to another. However, they don’t advertise tickets or schedules for the incoming or outbound section of the flight. Instead, they generally fly empty or without passengers.

However, to ensure that some of the cost of the flight is recovered, they offer seats to regular passengers on empty leg operations.

Generally, this happens with the cheapest charter flights. Seats on empty leg flights are generally available directly from an airline or only a couple of travel companies.

Though the cost of airline tickets on empty-leg flights is cheap, you’ll have to do without a lot of stuff, such as inflight food, drink and entertainment in most cases. But generally, such airlines permit you to carry your own food and booze aboard in limited quantities.

5. New Route Launches

This is more of a marketing gimmick followed by almost every airline. They offer hefty discount airline tickets on a new route from your city.

Or when an airline begins operating flights newly to your city. It could be a carrier from your country or even a foreign one. These flight discounts are legit and given to grab a slice of the market share while popularizing their new services.

Travelling on such the cheapest flights can indeed be a superb experience. If it’s a maiden flight, you’ll get not only a cheaper ticket but also some freebies and excellent in-flight service.

All airlines literally pour money to popularize their new routes in their own market and foreign ones, too. Hence, they make extra efforts to ensure you have a memorable experience along with hefty savings on airfares.

In some cases, they also offer a free air ticket or superb rebates for a companion or spouse. And amazing flight discounts for groups and families. These are part of their marketing exercise.

6. Scheduled Charter Flights

The term Scheduled Charter cheap airline flights does sound complicated. But it’s not. In simple terms, a Schedule Charter Flight is one operated by a company before it gets the status of a full airline in any country. Some companies launch the cheapest tickets as a run-up to full-fledged commercial operations as an airline.

They will sell the lowest-priced airline tickets through their own offices or travel companies. Their flights operate according to a schedule.

But instead of operating as an airline, they operate as a charter flight only. If you know an airline is coming up in your area, check if they’ll be operating Scheduled Charter Flights before launching.

7. Cheapest Flights to Secondary Airports

Let’s consider you’re flying from New York to Frankfurt. There’s a choice of landing at Flughafen Frankfurt Am Main or at Frankfurt Hahn.

While the former is the main airport of the German city, the latter is the secondary airport.  This means an air ticket between New York and Frankfurt Hahn will cost you less.

Though you’ll pay for cheap airfares, there are certain flipsides to arriving or departing from secondary airports. The main reason is they’ll generally be at some distance from your destination city.

While some airports offer free road transport to the destination city, others require you to make your own arrangements- which can work out expensive.

8. Holiday Packages

This might come as a surprise, but often, booking a small holiday package with a discount at your destination costs as much as regular cheap flight tickets.

This happens when a country or city is promoting itself as a tourist destination. You might get something like a two-nights-three-day package with return tickets for a price that’s equal to the airfare only.

As I mentioned earlier, airlines also offer cheaper fares for attending an event if they’re the official or designated carrier. In such cases, too, you’ll be able to get hotel accommodation and airfare at much cheaper rates.

However, before you book a holiday package merely because it works out equal to the cheap airfare, check the terms and conditions.

In some cases, you might be unable to extend your stay beyond the validity of the package at the destination. And in others, extending the ticket to cover any other destination might not be possible.

Conclusion

From flying with indirect carriers to utilizing frequent flyer miles, taking advantage of special discounts, and considering alternative airports, travellers have numerous options to save money on airfare. Exploring these less-discussed methods can lead to significant cost savings and enhance the overall travel experience.

As travel gradually picks up, with some areas of the world being identified as ‘travel bubbles’ or safer places despite the pandemic, airlines might come up with special offers to encourage passengers. However, what the future holds for air travel is anybody’s guess as airlines try to cope with mounting losses and have been laying off staff around the world.