5 Ways to Find Cheap Flights to Anywhere in the World
Finding a flight can be one of the most stressful things about traveling. Imagine this, you have a destination in mind, and you know the perfect days to take off of work. You sit down and fill out your flight search terms only to get results for three times what you wanted to spend. The most valuable thing that I’ve learned over the last 10 years while traveling is that you must have an open mindset and try to search for flights to anywhere instead of an exact destination. I too used to plan my vacations based on a specific destination or around a specific holiday, but I realized as soon as I chose to not focus on those things, I would end up saving tons of money, especially on flights.
As a part-time travel blogger who also has a full-time corporate job, I often get asked how I’m able to travel so often, so this article is very long overdue. Below are five travel tips on how to find cheap flights to anywhere in the world that I use myself. Some of these websites or apps have been my absolute favorites over the years, and some are newer companies that are here to change the travel hacking game and have quickly become a necessity for me when I’m looking to book a vacation. Keep in mind that the companies listed below are unique in that you can search for any destination instead of most flight search engines or airline websites that only let you search for a specific destination. In my opinion, this is hands down the best way to find cheap flights anywhere. Of course there are tons of other ways to save money while booking travel like booking through budget airlines for a lower price, using credit card points to save money, booking separate one way tickets, or tracking a specific route with Google Flights or Hopper to help find the best time to book. I highly recommend using these tactics if you are set on a specific destination, on the other hand, if you’re open to any destination, make sure to give the below tips a try!
*Disclosure: I only recommend products/services that I would use myself & all opinions expressed here are my own. This post may contain affiliate links meaning that, at no additional cost to you, I may earn a small commission which in turn helps fund my next adventure! Please read the Privacy Policy for more information.
1. Skyscanner
Skyscanner has been my go-to site for finding cheap flights and booking flights for almost seven years! If you’re unfamiliar with Skyscanner, it’s a flight search engine where you can either search for a specific destination or you have the option to select “Everywhere”. The results pull back every possible flight option and even tell you which days are cheaper if you’re dates are flexible. Regardless of your destination, they have an awesome calendar option that lets you browse the cheapest month instead of entering set dates so for example, if you wanted to fly from Seattle to Miami, you would choose the “Whole Month” option and then select either the month you want to fly, or choose “Cheapest Month” and the calendar will show when it’s best to fly based on the cheapest price. My favorite function that Skyscanner offers is that you can search “Everywhere” to see flight deals to any destination. To do this, you fill out the search box with your departure city and select “Everywhere” for the destination and then choose your desired month of travel. Click search and Skyscanner will bring up the cheapest flights by country that you can then click into and browse by city. This exact process is how I find a ton of my vacations. I start with a specific month, or sometimes I browse multiple months, and then I see what my options are. One last really cool feature that Skyscanner offers is a page dedicated to finding last minute flights to anywhere based on your departure city and it features available flights to destinations in the next 90 days. Browsing this page is really fun and I’ve found that the results are often for places off the beaten path, but if you’re dates are flexible you can score some great deals here. Current example: Seattle to Cabo for six days, one month away, for under $300 roundtrip.
2. WayAway
WayAway is a new company that I recently signed up for and has quickly won me over! They not only created a search engine to see and track flight prices, but they also completely thought of how the customer behaves when booking vacations and stepped out of the box by adding a cash back membership to their platform. WayAway is a flight aggregator that gives travelers the best rates on airline tickets and other travel deals. Users who sign up for the WayAway Plus membership plan, which is currently $49.99 per year, get additional cashback on bookings of flights, hotels, rental cars, and more with some of the top companies like Booking.com, Get Your Guide, Viator, and Rentalcars.com! For example, if you were to purchase a flight on WayAway, you’d receive up to 5% cashback, and then let’s say you also needed to book a hotel. Those who book a hotel on Booking.com through WayAway Plus will receive up to a 10% cashback reward after their stay. From there, you could also book your rental car through WayAway and earn cashback and even your tours, the possibilities are truly endless! Another unique touch they’ve added to their cashback membership plan is that your cashback isn’t rewarded in miles or points, it’s real cash that is directly sent to your PayPal account so that you can use it on whatever you please. Needless to say, this company is changing the way people book their travel. I recently signed up for their annual membership and can’t wait to try it out on my next trip! I’ve also partnered with WayAway to get you a special discount code for 10% off your annual membership when you use code: TRAVELINGTESSIE
3. Jack’s Flight Club
Now we head into my other favorite type of tactic which are the sites dedicated to scouring the web for amazing flight deals. Jack’s Flight Club is a website that will send you cheap flights right to your inbox every week. To get these deals you must create an account on their website and fill out your profile including which city is your main departure city. From there, you can select the free membership option, which gets you 1-2 deals per week, or you can choose the premium membership option, which is $49 per year. With the premium membership you get about 7-10 flight deals in your inbox each week, plus access to all error fares. Error fares are when someone fat-fingers a ticket price at the airline and it’s $100 instead of $1,000. These types of mistakes actually happen more often than you think and keep in mind that these can also be first class tickets too! Another perk with the Jack’s Flight Club membership is that you get first dibs on the deals offered. As a premium member, you’ll see the same few deals as the free members, but you’ll see them first so you have a better chance of scoring that discounted fare. Some recent deals include Philadelphia to Iceland for $277 round trip and Chicago to Tokyo for $338 round trip!
4. Escape Flights
If you follow me on Instagram, you might’ve seen me share a few of their deals recently. I stumbled upon the Escape Flights Instagram account for Seattle a few months ago and I’m obsessed! Escape Flights is another website dedicated to finding you the most tempting flight deals and they have separate Instagram accounts for each departure city they find flights for. Don’t worry if you’re not an Instagram user, they have a website as well that you can skim through and even sign up for alerts to go directly to your inbox! The departure cities they find flight deals for are Seattle, Portland, Chicago, New York City, Los Angeles, Denver, Phoenix, Houston, Dallas, Austin, and Milwaukee. If you live near any of these departure cities, I highly suggest you sign up now or follow them on Instagram or Twitter. Their service is completely free! Shocking, I know. The people behind Escape Flights do an outstanding job and if you’d like, you are able to support them through Patreon, and if you sign up you’ll receive even more flight deals. I’m visiting Phoenix in September and it happened solely because of Escape Flights. They had posted on Instagram that Southwest was having a sale and featured flights from Seattle to Phoenix which were under $200 round trip so I purchased my flight that same day!
5. Travel Zoo
Last up on the list is Travel Zoo, which is another website I’ve personally used multiple times over the years and find myself patiently awaiting their weekly Top 20 email that comes out every Wednesday. Travel Zoo isn’t solely dedicated to flight deals, but you can find really great vacation packages that include the airfare on their website. Their membership is free and all you need to do is create an account and set your location for your home base. Once you become a member, you can browse trending deals that include anything from discounted hotel stays, group tours, cruises, and vacation packages. Travel Zoo basically works with tour companies and hotels from around the world to bring you great discounted trips and offers. Think Groupon but for travel! I purchased my Rome and Venice trip through Travel Zoo, as well as a luxury hotel stay in Spain’s wine country and I couldn’t have been happier. Be sure to always read the fine print and make sure the dates work for you before purchasing, but since Covid, a lot of the deals are fully refundable if you purchase far in advance and end up not being able to go later on. One vacation package that’s currently on Travel Zoo that has caught my eye is castle-hopping in Ireland for 6-nights including airfare and a rental car for only $799.
Traveling is one of the best things you can do in life and there are endless destinations and possibilities. I hope that these tips help you get out and explore the wonderful world we live in and if you book a great deal from any of these sites after reading this, please send me an email and let me know about it! I love hearing from my readers and can’t wait to find out what deal you scored!
Happy travels!
-Tess
Tess Arnold
Hi! I’m Tess, founder of TravelingTessie.com, and not only do I love to travel, but I love immersing myself in new places and finding off the beaten path experiences wherever I go! I’ve lived in 4 different states & traveled to 13 countries and counting. I believe that tourism is meant to benefit both visitors and locals alike—and I want to bring that idea back into the travel industry by highlighting companies run by locals such as tours, hotels, restaurants, and more. On Traveling Tessie you can find hidden gems in top destinations around the world, travel tips, detailed city guides, and tons of inspiration for your next trip! If you love travel as much as I do, then please join me on this journey! I hope you enjoy my content as much as I enjoy providing it for you!
