The best sites for cheap flights

If you'd just feel safer buying direct, check Southwest first. This sweet spot of affordability and reliability offers more digestible fares than the infamously-steep ones offered by the likes of American, United, and Delta while creating fewer policy discrepancies around things like carry-ons than Frontier. In fact, Southwest will do you one better with not one, but two free checked bags, plus free iMessaging on board.

The reason you don't see Southwest fares pop up in an OTA or metasearch comparison isn't that Southwest's prices aren't competitive — the airline simply doesn't allow its fares to be shown on any website aside from its own. Upon entering Southwest.com, you'll be greeted with several one-way options under $100, going as low as $49 when Southwest has one of its frequent sales. The Rapid Rewards system, which is free to join, rewards frequent flyers with perks like no blackout dates and participation in promotions that you rarely see elsewhere, like its BOGO 50% off flights sale or bring a friend for free sale.

The logic behind Frontier's GoWild! All-You-Can-Fly flight pass is reminiscent of buying groceries in bulk to save money in the long run. A flat fee of a few hundred dollars lets you fly as much as you want to any Frontier destination (both domestic and international) within a seasonal time frame of five-ish months. The 2023 summer pass, which debuted at $399 but has since gone up in price, was the original headline maker and covered most of April through September, followed by the $299 2023 fall and winter pass, which picked up in September and covers flights through the end of February 2024.

The GoWild! pass probably isn't the best choice for folks planning a single vacation, but the potential savings are palpable for anyone who finds themselves on a plane on a regular basis. However, those frequent flyers will need to be flexible. GoWild! domestic flights can only be booked 24 hours ahead of time (or 10 days for international flights), and you can only book one way at a time — so you'll likely be booking your return trip during — not before — your trip.

Hopper may feel like a niche newcomer in comparison to nearly 30-year-old regulars like Expedia and Trivago. But the start-up's rapid success story is fueled by everyone's favorite (or least favorite) buzzword as of late: AI.

Hopper's AI-predictive technology tracks prices on millions of flights and uses historical data to predict the cheapest time to book, displayed on a color-coded calendar that's super easy to read. Hopper also applies that algorithm to a customized newsfeed of the best flight prices out of your home airport based on destinations or dates you've peeked at recently.

If you find a price that you like, the Price Freeze fee lets you lock it in before actually completing the booking — a clutch cushion for planning. Hopper will cover the rest (within a certain coverage amount) if the price goes up in the offered time frame.

If your budget is pickier than your wanderlust or time frame, Skyscanner's Explore Everywhere feature is a more streamlined way to get a glimpse of the cheapest place to visit than... well, Googling the cheapest places to visit. Rather than plugging potential destinations and dates into a search engine one by one, Skyscanner quickly produces a super simple grid of options by country and price (starting at the lowest) based on a time frame or a month in general.

Instead of a text-based list clogged up by flight times, the eye-friendly grid features nothing more than a name, picture, and roundtrip cost, painting a super quick picture of the countries to which you could travel under a certain dollar amount. Click on a country to see the cities that fall under that price range and then peruse departure and return flights through a calendar with prices listed on each day.

For those who aren't not gonna hop on a killer travel opportunity if it presents itself, subscribing to Going is key. Formerly Scott's Cheap Flights, Going is a recurring newsletter that alerts you on hidden gems between 40% and 90% off (typically saving $500 or more on international flights). The hands-off approach alleviates the numbness of scrolling through seemingly infinite volatile ticket prices — and is one of the internet's favorite travel hacks.

Each email is curated by Scott Keyes, a self-proclaimed professional cheap flight finder and founder of Scott's Cheap Flights. The subject line names a city or country, the ticket price, and the range of months that you'd be traveling to secure that price. Suggestions fluctuate based on your designated home airports and membership tier, with the two paid options ($49 or $199/year) sending more frequent deals including mistake fares and first-, business-, or premium economy–class tickets.

Tired: Buying two separate roundtrip fares to visit the two cities that you couldn't decide between. Wired: Hitting both locations on the same trip. That's the cost-effective logic behind Airwander, a combination flight search engine that peruses routes based on the thing that travelers often filter out: layovers.

Airwander's specialty is actually stopovers, which are essentially layovers that are long enough for you to leave the airport and explore a bonus city on the way to your final destination. Because these stops are more than 24 hours — sometimes lasting for days, depending on how you customize your search — you'll be able to access your luggage and check it back in before the next flight.

Even if you've never used any other app in this list, you've probably used Expedia (or Hotels.com, Orbitz, Trivago, or one of the other many travel sites Expedia owns). Aside from good last-minute deals and large sales during shopping holidays like Black Friday, the go-to travel tech giant actually isn't likely to regularly pinpoint the absolute lowest prices like other sites in this list can. It's still great for one thing, though: bundles. If you need lodging as well, booking your hotel along with your flight can save you up to 30% total on both.

The full-fledged online travel agency produces more nitty gritty results than oversimplified apps like Hopper, which detail-oriented, old-school planners may prefer. An Expedia search will immediately lay out all potential route options including the specific airport, takeoff and landing times, as well as layover locations and times.

Somehow, more than 20 years of experience in the field hasn't been sufficient time to perfect customer care. Countless travelers have been burned by Expedia's flighty cancellation policies and irresponsible communication with the actual airlines, leading folks to check in 24 hours early just to find that the actual airline has no record of their booking.