Insane Flight Deals: How to Find the Cheapest Flights to Anywhere!

One of my favourite hobbies is finding insane flight deals and booking cheap flights. And I’m pretty good at it, if I do say so myself! So if you want to learn how to find the cheapest flights to anywhere, keep reading.

I am obsessed with flight deals. Even if I can’t take advantage of them or they’re for an airport halfway around the world, I just love seeing them. It’s a cool feeling to know that someone out there is going to be able to go on their dream trip for a bargain.

My friends and family know me as the person who can always find a good flight deal. Whenever someone in the family has a trip coming up, my mother in law jokes, “Oh, Riana can find cheap flights for that!”

And while that’s not exactly how it works, I definitely know a thing or two about how to find the cheapest flights to anywhere in the world!

Insane flight deal FAQs:

What is a flight deal?

A flight deal is when an airline, either on purpose or by mistake (known as an “error fare”), drops the price of a flight by a significant enough amount to cause someone to say, “Wow, that is an insane flight deal!” Usually, that’s about 50% or more off the typical flight price.

You’re probably thinking, “Sounds great, but how do I find these insane flight deals? And can you actually book them or is this all a scam?” Stay tuned! After the FAQs I get into exactly how to find cheap flight deals and how to book them before they’re gone.

What are the best days to fly?

The best days to fly are the days the insane flight deal is for! I know that’s a silly answer but seriously, the flight deal you find should dictate what day you fly. Most cheap flight ticket websites (more on those below!) will give you specific dates for when the deal is valid, making those the best and cheapest days to fly.

If you’re not booking a flight deal, the best way to find the cheapest days to fly will be to consult the booking calendar. Most flight search engines, like Google Flights, will have a calendar you can pull up. When searching, you’ll be able to see the cost of your flight based on the dates you pick.

Do business class flight deals exist?

Yes, business class flight deals do exist but they are harder to come by. In my years of following cheap flight websites, I’ve only seen business class deals a handful of times. However, some of these websites offer upgraded subscriptions which promise more business class flight deals.

Another option is to snag business class flight deals by using credit card or airline points. I am not a points expert – there are tons online you can consult. They will teach you how to travel hack your way into great business class flight deals so you can fly in luxury!

Can you find cheap direct flights or are they all connecting flight deals?

Both cheap direct flights and cheap connecting flights show up on flight deal websites. It obviously depends a lot on the destination you’re flying to and where you’re flying from. Unless you’re flying from a big hub to a relatively close big hub, you may not be able to get there without a connection.

If you’re just searching for a flight – not waiting for a deal – you can filter by the number of connections. You can also filter by total travel time if you’re concerned about extra long connections. However, sometimes a long connection actually means a bonus day exploring a new place for free – like the time we spent 24 hours in Tokyo on the way home from Bangkok!

Can you find cheap one way tickets?

Yes, cheap one way tickets are possible. However, they rarely come up on flight deal websites. You’d probably have a better chance of finding them during a regular flight search using Google Flights (more on that below).

If you’re holding out for a flight deal for cheap one way tickets, you may be waiting a while. I have seen listed flight deals that have to be booked as two one-way tickets, meaning you could just book one way instead of both.

You could also just take your outbound flight and skip your inbound flight in order to fly one-way only, but this is risky. As soon as you skip a leg of your flight, the rest of the legs are cancelled. For example, if you have a flight from Seattle to London that connects in Calgary, you can’t get on in Calgary. As soon as you miss that Seattle to Calgary flight, they will cancel the rest of your ticket. So if you are going to skip, it either needs to be the last leg of your flight or you need to be okay with the rest of the legs being cancelled.

These cancellations can extend to roundtrip tickets too (i.e. they may cancel your flight home if you skip part of your flight there). And if you are checking luggage, it may be checked through all the way to your final destination. So if you skip the last leg, your luggage may get lost.

Note that there have been stories of airlines charging people money or loyalty programs blackballing people who skip flights, even if it’s the final leg. I’m not sure how often this happens, but it’s something to be aware of. Best practice is to not skip a flight leg unless you absolutely have to. And if you do, try to let the airline know you won’t be coming.

What about cheap last minute flights?

Cheap last minute flights are hard to come by. Airlines know that people who are booking a day or two before their flight departs are desperate and unorganized; since they have to fly immediately, the airline is going to charge them a lot to do so.

However, if “last minute” means a month or so in advance, you might be in luck. I’ve seen lots of flight deals pop up just a month before the deal’s travel dates. If that’s spontaneous enough for you, it’s a great way to find cheap last minute flights.

Do flights get cheaper the closer it gets? Or is it better to book early?

The most expensive times to book a flight are 1) when they are first released and 2) right before the flight.

Flights typically go on sale 10-12 months in advance. At that point, the airline doesn’t know what demand will look like, so sets the price high. They also have no incentive to discount the flight since the only people searching for flights that far out are likely travelling for a specific purpose and will pay whatever it takes to get there (e.g. for a destination wedding).

As discussed above, booking flights last minute is usually quite expensive too. Just plug any destination into Google Flights and check the prices for the next few days. Likely they are way more expensive than flights a few weeks from now (an exception would be holiday flight pricing).

The sweet spot for booking flights is usually 6-12 weeks before departure – unless you can get a flight deal, in which case the best time is as soon as the deal goes live!

If you’re looking to fly to a specific place at a specific time, you can track your flight. Google Flights allows you to do this and will send you an alert when the price changes. Google Flights, and other sites like Airfare Watchdog, will also tell you if the price you’re seeing for your flight is low, typical or high compared to the average cost.

Should I use an incognito browser to get the most insane flight deals? What about clearing my cookies or booking on a Tuesday?

No. Lots of websites will tell you the best way to find the cheapest flight deals is to use an incognito browser, clear your cookies, search at 2am on Tuesday or log in through an international version of the airline’s website. Most of the time, these tricks won’t do anything for you. In fact, most of them have been debunked.

Of course, some of these tricks are more inconvenient than they are harmful. While I wouldn’t go to the trouble of setting an alarm for Tuesday at 2am or deleting all of my cached info, opening an incognito browser doesn’t hurt. And sometimes, the deal really is better on an international version of the airline’s site.

If it’s going to take you two clicks to check for a better price and you won’t lose the deal in that time, go for it. But if you’re spending more than 15 minutes trying to trick the airline website into giving you $20 off the posted price, you’re wasting time. And more importantly, you might be missing out on the flight deal since they can go fast!

The most insane flight deals I have found:

As you may have guessed, I’ve taken advantage of some amazing flight deals in my time. Here are a few of my favourites (all of the prices below are in Canadian dollars):

• When I went on my first solo trip to Europe in 2012, I paid just over $400 roundtrip for cheap multi city flights from Toronto to London and then Lisbon back to Toronto.
• Colin, his mom and I flew to Los Angeles roundtrip for $63 each in 2016. His mom was convinced our tickets were fake until we boarded the plane because they were so cheap!
• Colin and I went to Ireland in April 2018 on an insane flight deal that was Vancouver to Dublin for only $340 roundtrip each!
• We scored amazingly cheap multi city flights to Asia in January 2019. We flew from Vancouver to Singapore and then Bangkok back to Vancouver, with a stop in Tokyo both ways, for $477 per person!
• Most impressively we snagged cheap domestic flights over Christmas – a rare time to find flight deals – from Vancouver to Toronto for less than $300 per person, roundtrip. We’ve also flown to Toronto for less than $200 roundtrip in the summer.
• We flew from Vancouver to Kauai for under $350 per person on roundtrip, direct flights in the winter.
• Colin and I snagged cheap international flight tickets from Vancouver to Paris in September 2022 for $450 each. The perfect place to celebrate our first wedding anniversary!
• And most impressively: I snagged the best flight deal for 2023! I’ve got cheap multi city flights from Seattle to London and Amsterdam back to Vancouver for only $160!!!!!

Clearly, cheap flights are amazing. Some people think I’m just really lucky to get these insane flight deals and others think I have some in with the airlines, but they’re wrong.

Here’s how it really works:

How to Find the Cheapest Flights to Anywhere

The first step to booking a flight deal is being able to find one. If you’re waiting for the deal to come to you from some friends who have booked it or for it to be published in a local newspaper, it’s already gone. The kind of insane flight deals I’m talking about are one-offs, not general promotions put out by an airline or tourism company. Not that those can’t be great, but they’re never going to be $340-roundtrip-to-Ireland great!

So how do I find the best flight deals? I let other people find them for me and alert me immediately when they become available.

Sign up for YVR Deals for the most insane flight deals!

My all time favourite flight deal website is YVR Deals. This website is Vancouver-specific, but they have versions for most major Canadian airports – click here to find your city.

I love YVR Deals! YVR Deals is responsible for most of the insane flight deals I’ve snagged so far. I love that it’s a Canadian site so all of the prices are in CAD and it’s exclusive to flights out of YVR Airport (though Seattle is listed too when the deal is really good).

You can browse YVR Deals’ website, join their Facebook group and subscribe to get email alerts. Of course, I do all three.

Follow Secret Flying to find cheap flight deals

Another favourite flight deal website of mine is Secret Flying. Secret Flying works just like YVR Deals, except it isn’t specific to Vancouver. Secret Flying finds awesome cheap flights from all over the world.

I love Secret Flying because I enjoy looking at flight deals, even if they’re for someone in Ethiopia flying to Singapore and I could never take advantage of it. Secret Flying is also awesome because it’s updated constantly. There are easily a dozen or more deals every day.

Secret Flying can be a little intimidating to scroll through if you’re only looking for deals out of a specific city. If you don’t enjoy seeing worldwide flight deals like I do, I would not suggest scrolling through the Secret Flying Facebook page multiple times a day (or annoying your partner with all the cool deals you’re seeing). What you can do is subscribe to their email list and specify which country/region you’d like to see flight deals for.

Check out other insane flight deal websites

So I rely on YVR Deals for Vancouver-specific travel and use Secret Flying just to see what is available out there. I’m also subscribed to TravelZoo, Next Departure (Canadian) and Going (previously Scott’s Cheap Flights; American).

There are lots of different flight deal websites and Facebook groups out there. Some send you deal alerts for free and others offer more deals for a membership fee (usually $50-100/year). Some of these websites will send out a daily email, others send you an email as soon as a deal is live, and still others require you to check their group or webpage for the latest flight deals.

If you are obsessed with flight deals like me, you can subscribe to everything and scroll through all of the websites a few times a week. Eventually, you’ll whittle it down to your favourites. If you just want to book your next trip for cheap, I suggest signing up for immediate email alerts from YVR Deals (or your airport of choice).

How to Book Cheap Flights to Anywhere

It’s not just about how to find the cheapest flights to anywhere – you also need to know how to book them!

You may be thinking this is really obvious. Clearly, once you find the flight deal all you need to do is press the purchase button, right?

Absolutely. I’m not here to walk you through booking a flight online. The actual process of booking is super simple. I’m talking more broadly about how you can take advantage of the cheap flights and deals you find online.

Be ready to book

Flight deals do not last long. Some are around for mere minutes! If you are serious about booking a flight deal, you need to be able to book the second you find that deal. This isn’t the type of situation where you can wait until you’re home from work to talk it over with your partner. You need to book NOW.

Sure, some flight deals do last longer than others. But the really good ones? They’re gone instantly.

For many years, I would forward awesome flight deals out of Toronto to my parents (especially when it was deals to come to Vancouver and visit me). But after a while, I realized it was never going to work. They just weren’t able to jump on a deal as fast as they needed to. It would take them a day or two to respond to my email and the response was always, “Looks good. We’ll have to check our schedules and talk it over.”

If you have to think about it, wait to talk to someone or get your holiday approved by your boss first, you can kiss those cheap international airline tickets goodbye! (But don’t worry, I’ve got tips for you to still book the next cheapest airline tickets – keep scrolling!)

Be flexible

It’s impossible to predict when and where a flight deal is going to pop up. The best way to take advantage of cheap flights is to be flexible – flexible with your destination, your dates, or better yet, both!

If you are set on going to Paris on August 1st, you’re going to have to get pretty freaking lucky to find that flight deal. But with a flexible flight search, your options open up. If you’re cool to go to Paris at any point in the year or open to go anywhere in Europe in August, your odds of finding a flight deal just got a lot better.

Every year, Colin and I discuss what we want our vacation time to look like for the next year. We usually pick a general region or a time of year that’s going to work best for us. And then we wait for the flight deals to come in!

For example, we decided we wanted to go to Europe in 2018 – we didn’t care where in Europe and we didn’t care when. Then on a random weekend in August 2017, I got an email alert about insane flight deals to Ireland: $340 roundtrip!

Because Colin and I had already discussed where we wanted to go and because I knew this deal wouldn’t last long, I was already clicking through to the booking page by the time Colin got back from the bathroom. I informed him of the deal and barely waited for him to nod in agreement before clicking the purchase button!

Be prepared for disappointment

This was a lesson about flight deals that I had to learn the hard way. In 2018, I booked a flight deal from Vancouver to New Zealand for $450 roundtrip. An absurd price! Well, it turned out the airline felt the same way. They ended up cancelling my flight.

The rule of thumb with flight deals is to never book anything else (e.g. hotels, tours) and don’t announce your trip on social media until at least 24 hours after your flight booking. Sadly, Air New Zealand cancelled my flight well after the 24 hour mark. I was even more crushed because I thought I was in the clear.

But that’s the game with flight deals! You never know if they’re going to last, so approach with caution.

And, in all my time of snagging cheap international flight tickets, this was the only time the airline cancelled on me. Most of the time they know about the deal or, if it is an error fare, they choose to honour it anyway.

If you can’t snag an insane flight deal, how do you still book the cheapest flights to anywhere?

Even if you can’t take advantage of the best flight deals, you can still learn how to book the cheapest flight deals to anywhere!

Let’s face it: Flight deals aren’t for everyone

Obviously, everyone loves cheap flights. But flight deals don’t work for everyone.

If the idea of booking something right away without being able to sleep on it scares you, you’re going to have a tough time with short-lasting flight deals. If your vacation time and destinations aren’t flexible, flight deals might be hard to come by. And if you don’t want to subscribe to email alerts, you might miss out on the best flight prices.

I’m not saying it’s impossible to book a flight deal if the above apply to you. I’m just saying it gets a lot harder to find and book cheap flights if you don’t follow the deal pages, can’t book right away and aren’t flexible.

Here’s what you can do instead: 

Search for cheap flights on Google Flights

My favourite flight search engine is Google Flights. You can easily search for flights, see prices by date, add multiple airports and search by region. You can filter by number of connections, total travel time or airline. Once you’ve entered your parameters, Google will show you all of the flight options and then send you to the airline’s website to book.

I also used SkyScanner or Kayak to search for flights. I like SkyScanner’s “search anywhere” option and sometimes Kayak hosts special deals. But Google Flights is my go to.

Be as flexible as you can

You might not have as much flexibility as someone who is waiting for a flight deal to drop, but you can still be as flexible as possible when searching for cheap flights. If you’re able to be flexible on your dates, even by a day or two, you can consult the calendar on Google Flights. You can often save $50-100 by moving your vacation by just one day.

You could also be flexible about your departure and arrival airports. For example, from Vancouver I might be able to fly out of Abbotsford or Seattle if the flight is significantly cheaper from there. Or if you’re flying to Paris, don’t forget to search both Charles de Gaulle and Orly airports. (Google Flights will actually let you search all of the airports in a city and suggest nearby ones.)

You could also fly into a major hub and then take a smaller, budget flight or train to your final destination. For example, if I’m trying to get to Antwerp, it’s a lot cheaper for me to fly from Vancouver to major hubs in Europe like Paris, London or Amsterdam, then directly to Antwerp. From there, I can hop a quick 1-2 hour train to Antwerp.

Last tip: Look into your points! As I mentioned above, I’m not a points expert but you may be able to save some money by using your credit card points or airline miles towards a flight.

Decide on a trigger price and/or due date to book your flight

Understandably, you want the cheapest flight you can get – no one wants to overpay! But a lot of people fall into analysis paralysis when searching for a cheap flight, never able to commit because they’re always worried the flight will get cheaper.

Don’t let this be you. Use tools, like Google Flights, that will tell you if the price you’re seeing is low, typical or high for that flight route. That will give you a good sense of where you’re at, but there’s still no guarantee if or when flight prices will rise or lower.

Since there are no guarantees, I find it helpful to decide on a trigger price. For example, I might say that I’m happy to pay $800 for roundtrip tickets from Vancouver to London. As soon as the price drops to $800, I’m buying. Sure, it could go lower. But it could also go higher! I’m comfortable with $800 and happy to pay that for my peace of mind.

You could also give yourself a due date. For example, if you’re travelling in March, you could decide that you want to have your tickets booked by January 31st. Will prices go down in February? Maybe! But if you’re not comfortable waiting and risking a higher price, set a cut off date for when you need to book by.

Warning: Avoid booking with third parties and OTAs!

As much as possible, you want to avoid booking flights on third party websites or with OTAs (online travel agencies). These are sites like Expedia, Orbitz, CheapoAir, etc.

Booking on these third party sites can be very appealing. They offer nice deals and the convenience of booking everything in one place. Plus, it feels nice to have a “travel agent” finding you the best routes.

But be warned, these sites are often way more trouble than they’re worth. They are notorious for terrible customer service, not providing flight updates and changing your flight itinerary without warning. They are also unhelpful if your flight is delayed or cancelled, often not giving out refunds or credits that you would have received if you had booked directly with the airline.

Have I booked with an OTA? Yes. Before I knew better (and even when I did know better, but the deal was too good to pass up), I booked with them. When there were no problems with the flight, it worked out fine. But when there were issues, it was a disaster.

On our flight home from Ireland in 2018, we were supposed to fly from Dublin to Vancouver with 1 stop in London. Without telling us, our OTA changed our itinerary to have a gruelling 3 stops – London, New York and Toronto – between Dublin and Vancouver. We only found out when we went to check into our flight the day before and after spending hours on hold, racking up international phone charges.

Lucky for us, a lovely British Airways agent in London changed our itinerary so we could fly straight to Vancouver from there. (Our Dublin flight was delayed so we had already missed our original connection to New York.) But the OTA we booked through did nothing and refused to offer any compensation after the fact.

Lesson learned: Book directly with airlines only!

3 Steps to Finding the Cheapest Flights to Anywhere

1 – Subscribe to YVR Deals, Secret Flying and/or a flight deal email list of your choosing. If you want to get really into it, subscribe to a few and join some flight deal Facebook groups as well.

2 – Figure out what your parameters are for your flight. Do you have a general idea of where you want to go and when? Or are you totally flexible? What’s your budget?

3 – Gather your travel details and be ready to book! If you’re booking with a partner, friend or family, have all of their passport and personal info on hand so you don’t miss a deal because you can’t remember your sister-in-law’s birthday for the passenger info page. Make sure they’re on board with the dates, destinations and prices ahead of time.

That’s it! Now sit back and wait for a good deal to roll in. And remember: If flight deals don’t work for you, you can still follow my tips above to score cheap flights.

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What insane flight deals have you managed to score? Or where are you hoping to get cheap flights to next? I’m looking out for Asia for next year – but I’m always flexible!