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Finding affordable flights can feel like navigating a maze of endless booking sites and constantly changing prices, especially when you’re not locked into specific dates or destinations. If you’ve ever spent hours comparing flight prices across multiple platforms only to miss out on the best deals, or felt that familiar sting of booking a flight and then seeing the same route for $200 less the next day, you’re definitely not alone!
In this guide, I’ll share my top pick for the best airfare search engine and reveal the proven strategies that have helped me (and countless other travelers) unlock incredible airfare deals, including a game-changing feature that shows you the cheapest destinations worldwide and tells you exactly when to book for maximum savings.
But here’s the exciting part—whether you’re dreaming of a spontaneous weekend escape or planning that once-in-a-lifetime international adventure, the right airfare search engine can completely transform how you discover and book your travels. If you know where and when you want to fly, your best bet is to check out Cheap-o-Air first to find the best flight deals.
Bundle & Save Even More on Travel Plans
You may not know it, but you can bundle and save even more with CheapOair. Use the “Bundle and Save” tab below to combine all your trip plans for bigger discounts. Confirm and track your flights, hotels, and car rental bookings into a single vacation package, which often results in additional savings.
The platform allows you to book these components together on its all-in-one travel search tool, making it convenient to plan and keep track of your complete trip all in one place. By bundling your flight, hotel, and car rental, you can take advantage of discounted rates and potentially save money compared to booking each element separately.
Tips to Find the Best Airfare Deals
Before you start using my pick for the best airfare search engine, review these six airfare travel hacks. They should get you started to know when to start shopping, and which days are best to fly and shop for flights. Did you know…?
If your flight dates and destinations are flexible, or you’re looking for something new, keep reading to see what I recommend for the adventurous traveler.
When to Book Domestic U.S. Flights
You’ll want to plan ahead, but not too far ahead. Domestic airfare in the U.S. should be bought at least 3 weeks and up to 6 weeks before you want to leave town; you can save up to 24% compared to booking closer to your departure date. If you’re booking flights for peak season, like holidays, then you’ll probably want to start searching earlier because flights can fill up quickly.
When to Book your Winter Holiday Flights
The months of September and October have been the best months to book holiday flights at lower prices in previous years. If you know exactly where and when you want to fly, use the tool below to do an initial search in the summer, then set a “Fare Alert” so you’ll be notified when prices change.
When to Book International Flights
Planning an international trip to Europe, Asia, or the Middle East? Here’s a helpful tip that could save you some serious money! The sweet spot for booking your flights is usually around three to five months before you travel. This timing tends to give you the best deals based on how airline pricing typically works. For international travel, plan further ahead – 2 to 8 months in advance is optimal.
You’ll want to avoid two common booking mistakes: don’t book too early (more than 10 months ahead) or wait until the last minute (less than three weeks before your trip). Both of these timing extremes often lead to higher prices, so that three-month window is really your best friend when it comes to snagging a good deal on international flights!
What Days Are Best to Shop for Flights?
Shop for flights on Sundays to find the best airfare deals. It’s the cheapest day to book flights. Avoid shopping and booking flights on Fridays when it’s the most expensive. This makes sense since many people start dreaming about getting away at the end of a long or stressful work week.
As a rule, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Saturdays are the least popular days to fly, so you may find the best airfare deals on these days. On the other hand, Fridays and Sundays are the most popular, so in most cases, they’ll be more expensive.
How to Reduce The Chance of a Flight Cancellation
To avoid the worst delays and cancellations, you should plan for your flight to leave before 3 p.m.. It’s interesting to note that flights that leave after 3 p.m. have a 50% higher chance of being canceled than earlier flights. Hmmm. It would be interesting to know the details behind that stat.
Active Duty Military Flight Discounts
Are you on active duty with the military? If so, you can find information about which airlines offer discounts for military and how to contact Cheap-O-Air to save money on airfare, luggage, or other fees here.
The Best Airfare Search Engine for Flexible Dates and Destinations
Have you seen Cheap-O-Air’s amazing airfare “Explore” Tool? It’s the easiest way I’ve found to discover the best airfare deals when your dates are flexible, especially when you’re not sure where you want to go and are open to new places. I think it’s the best airfare search engine around.
This tool, for the true adventurer, allows you to enter minimal information and come up with relevant and helpful results. Do you want to take a trip, but have flexible dates and don’t want to limit your destination possibilities? The “Explore” Tool is the best airfare search engine that lets you simply choose your preferred departure airport, then shows you average fare prices anywhere in the world from that airport or city, any time of year.
From there you can easily narrow your search with as little or as much detail as you want. Here’s a quick guide to make the most of this handy Explore Tool.
Getting Started with Cheap-O-Air Explore Tool:
To get started with the best airfare search engine, either click on this link to go straight to the “Explore” Tool, or go to the home page, then choose “More Travel” and “Explore” from the top menu. In either case, don’t forget to bookmark it in your browser for future use.
1 – Once you’re there, click on the “Explore” tab at the top menu bar. If you’ve used the tool before, it will have your preferred airport saved.
2 – Where do you want to start your journey? Enter the airport city.
3 – You can enter a country, state, or region in the next field, or leave it blank if you want to see the whole world.
4 – In the next field you can enter a date range or exact dates or if you have flexible dates leave the “Anytime” between 1 and 14 days” field empty to get the maximum results from your search.
5 – Click the “Explore Deals” button and discover your travel destinations
6 – If you’re on a budget, you can set the maximum you want to spend on a roundtrip flight under “Price”
7 – Want to fly non-stop? Choose your stopover options to narrow or widen your search under “Stops”. You can also choose your preferred “Flight Duration” and “Layover Duration”.
8 – Zoom out to see worldwide options or zoom in to focus on a region, state or specific airport.
Narrowing Your Flight Search
10 – Isn’t this the best airfare search engine? If you want to narrow your travel dates to a specific month, click on the “Anytime, Any Duration” field and this window will pop up.
11 – Choose a month to see the best airfare deals for that month.
12 – You can also narrow your search to a specific travel length from 1 day to more than 14 days.
13 – If you know your exact dates for travel, click on the “Exact Dates” option in the pop-up window,
14 – Then either type in the trip beginning date or choose from the calendar.
15 – Do the same for the trip end date.
16 – You can search again to get the best airfare deals specific to your exact dates.
17 – If you’re looking for a specific type of travel, like national parks, skiing, beaches, etc. you can select your interests in the “Travel Interest” section.
That’s it. So much information is offered in one tool! You’ll love playing around with it and finding your perfect vacation. Then use Cheap-o-Air to book the best airfare deals on the destinations you found in this tool. They even have a page specifically for last-minute flight sales here.
Booking your trip? Here are some of the resources I use myself:
-Book great deals on flights with Cheap-o-Air
-Discover cool lodging with Booking.com
-Find the best prices and perks for cruises at CruiseDirect.com
-Reserve your vacation home rental with VRBO
-Book your car rental with RentalCars.com
-Buy your travel insurance with InsureMyTrip
-Book unique travel tours with Get Your Guide and Viator
-Find delicious culinary experiences with EatWith
-Find even more of my favorite travel resources here.
When you use these links I earn a small commission, at no extra cost to you. This helps me pay the bills and allows me to continue to create and share free tips and advice to help you travel better. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
More Travel Planning Tips
If you’re looking for vacation package deals, I’ve found an excellent website and weekly newsletter that I love. You can find out more about it at this post “Where to Find the Best Travel Deals“.
If you think this is the best airfare search engine, like I do and find these tips to be helpful be sure to check out my “Travel Planning” page for more great tips. Then sign up for my occasional newsletter below to get the latest travel hacks and more helpful advice for your next trip.
