My Pick for the Best Airfare Search Engine

Are you looking for the best airfare deals for your next adventure? If you know where and when you want to fly, your best bet is to check out Cheap-o-Air below first to find the best flight deals. But if your flight dates and destinations are flexible or you’re looking for the best airfare search engine keep reading to see what I recommend.

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?

• You’ll want to plan ahead. Domestic airfare in the U.S. should be bought about 28 days (4 weeks) before you want to leave town; you can save up to 24% compared to booking closer to your departure date.
• You should book international airfare around 60 days (2 months) out (and no more than 4 months) for the best availability and savings (around 10% on average). Booking too early will stick you with higher prices. Airlines start dropping prices and offering the best airfare deals on emptier planes between 2 and 4 months before departure.
• 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.
• Are you on active duty with the military? If so, you may be able to find discounts on airfare, luggage, or other fees here.
• 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.

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.

More Travel Planning Tips

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.