Finding Cheap Flights

How to Find the Cheapest Flights (without Points)

There are many platforms to book flights on and so many airlines, it can get confusing. Eventually, everyone who travels lots ends up studying and accumulating points. If you're not at that point yet though and you haven't booked many trips before, you've found the right place.

How to Search Flights

Use Skyscanner or GoogleFlights to search for your flights initially. I prefer Skyscanner as it searches across more of the smaller travel agencies and usually gives me more options, but the difference with GoogleFlights is minimal.

When you find a flight you're interested in, it will show you all the possible options for which travel agency you can purchase the tickets with.

Once you've found a flight you want, it will give you the option to choose between one of these third party "OTA"s (Online Travel Agencies) that you can make your reservation through. There are some (such as Jettzy, and Aunty Betty) that I absolutely never use, as they are really difficult if you have a flight issue, miss a connection, or have to change a flight. Trip.com has always been reliable for me, so they are my preferred. You can check the reviews of any of these agencies using TrustPilot and make up your own mind.

However, I will always look at the price of booking the flight direct through the airline, and if it's a small difference I'll usually just book with the airline for the convenience of knowing that they'll help me rebook the flight if anything goes wrong.

The Best Flight App for Australians

If you're in Australia, I swear by I Know The Pilot and you need to download their app. You can set your location to any state/territory capital city, as well as Cairns, Gold Coast, and Townsville. The app will then give you notifications (if you choose) for cheap flights and airline specials as they arise.

I've used I Know The Pilot to book a round trip from Sydney to Greece for $600 (!!!), as well as multiple $30 one-way flights between Sydney and Melbourne or $50 between Sydney and Brisbane. I've booked Melbourne-Beijing for $450 return, Vietnam for $400 return, and Kuala Lumpur for $450. It's great for cheap deals - although they're generally within 1-2 month windows and you may need to book a few months in advance. I Know The Pilot often decides where I'm going for me - based on what's cheap and enticing!

Don't Care Where You Go, As Long As It's Cheap?

Skyscanner has my absolute favourite feature: the fly Everywhere option. I've taken a flight for €5 from Belgium to Sofia, a €17 flight from Barcelona to Birmingham, a €10 from Paris to Greece, and perhaps my favourite, a €20 flight from Warsaw to Reykjavik.

Consider Planning Trips Based on Cheap Fares

The way I look at it, I want to travel everywhere. I'm open to new destinations, and there are places I would like to visit in every country on Earth. So when looking at flight options, I'll look for a good deal using the Everywhere feature and book based on where the flights are cheapest.

In 2025 I've booked a flight for only AU$400 from Cape Town to Addis Ababa, then flying back to Johanesburg with a stop-over in Kinshasa. Whilst the civil unrest in DRC meant that I decided not to utilise the stopover in Kinshasa, I was looking at minimum $1500 for any particular destination, but found this deal through trying different options on SkyScanner.

In planning a 2023 Pacific Islands trip, as many countries as possible with a budget of $2000 in flights, and was open to the flight order and destinations. I played around with the Everywhere feature and noted down the best direct flight combinations. Below is one of my more rudimentary excel sheets to find cheapest flight path options and decide on the visiting order.

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