If you understand how to book cheap plane tickets, the sky is the limit. You can go anywhere—even out of the country—for prices that might surprise you.

In today’s article, we’ll give you a few tips that can save you hundreds, if not thousands, on plane tickets from now on.

• Be Flexible

The best prices for flights often come when it’s not convenient. Last minute, odd dates, and unique locations. If you HAVE to go to a specific location, at a specific date, on a specific airline, you’re generally going to be very limited in what kinds of deals are available.

On the other hand, if you’re just looking to go somewhere, the world is your oyster. You can sign up for services that will alert you about random tickets (as we’ll discuss shortly). The prices on these tickets will be far lower than usual – sometimes by hundreds of dollars.

It can be exciting to go somewhere you never thought about going, too. When the price is right, you get the ticket. Then you look up different places to see. It’s an adventure. If you have this kind of attitude, you’ll find yourself with an abundance of travel opportunities, no matter what your budget.

• Use Incognito Mode

Most people buy their tickets online these days. If you buy the very first time you search for a flight, this is fine. However, if you like to search multiple times before choosing a ticket, you need to be aware of a somewhat shady industry practice.

All of the popular web browsers today track cookies. This means a website knows when you visit a website, and then visit again. To some extent, they are tracking your behavior. If an airline website sees you checking on a flight over and over again over the course of a week or so, they will often artificially inflate the price. This is to get you off the fence and give you the urgency you need to buy the ticket.

You can protect yourself by using either private or incognito browsing. In Google Chrome, you can open a private session by pushing cmd + shift + m (mac) or cntrl + shift + m (windows).

• Book Your Ticket on One of These Websites

To get the cheapest possible prices, you should use a plane ticket aggregate site. This is a website that searches multiple airlines at once, giving you the best possible price.

Here is a list of three of the best:

Kayak.com

Cheapoair.com

Skyscanner

If you can check one of these websites at least a month ahead of your travel date, you’ll generally save at least $100, and usually even more.

• Use a Ticket Alert App

If you’re open minded, a ticket alert app is by far the cheapest way to get great plane tickets. These apps will send you periodic notifications whenever a plane ticket to anywhere is cheap. For example, next weekend, there could be a plane ticket to Miami for 80% off the normal price.

With these kinds of apps, you can either set a location you want to visit, dates you want to visit, or keep it open ended. If you set a location, the app will alert you whenever that location is very low. If you set a date, the app will alert you of flights to anywhere leaving on that date at an amazing price.

A good example of this kind of app is called “Hitlist”. It’s free, and you can set it up in seconds.

• Know Your Budget Airlines

Certain airlines go above and beyond when it comes to cutting ticket prices. But, this comes at a cost. Most people are already uncomfortable when flying. But these budget airlines remove most of the remaining “luxuries”. This means less leg rooms, no snacks, and you may even have to print your own boarding pass or pay a fee!

If you’re willing to be uncomfortable for a few hours to save a lot, it can be worth it. If you do decide to fly a budget airline, be sure to read all the instructions and fine print carefully. Budget airlines will generally charge a fee for anything that is not explicitly stated as coming with the ticket price.

With that in mind, here are some top budget airlines based on their location:

USA: Southwest, Jet Blue, Frontier, Spirit.

Canada: Swoop, WOW Air, Porter.

Europe: Ryanair, Easyjet, Vueling.

Asia: Air Asia, Tiger Air, Jet star.

• Sign Up for Reward Programs

When you find an airline that you like, sign up for their rewards program. That way, every time you fly you add up miles that can later be exchanged for free flights. It takes just a few minutes and can pay off huge over time.

Best Wishes,

The Vipon Team.