In 2019 after we met, we racked up 48 flights between us just visiting each other from London to Amsterdam and vice versa. This has made us appreciate what is completely necessary when travelling by air. In this blog we are going to highlight the best ways to book your flights and how to make your life as easy as possible when flying.
When to book?
This may sound obvious, but book in advance if possible. Although there may be last minute deals we would not recommend holding out for these as prices are more than likely going to sore in the last two weeks. The difference between booking in advance and not has personally saved us over £1000.
Where to book?
There are a couple of search engines we would recommend buying flight tickets through, Skyscanner and Google Flights. The ease and practicality of search engine sites like Skyscanner makes booking flights a breeze!
The first thing we advise is to search for flights/hotels under an incognito window for example:
There are debates whether this actually works but in our personal experience it has seemed to help. This ensures your search history and site data is not saved and therefore the prices will not increase because of your interest. You may have had it that you search for a flight or hotel, like what you see, and wait a few days to book it only to see the prices have surged or ‘there are only 2 rooms/seats left’ messages popping up. This is because your search history and site data has been saved, they know you are interested and therefore encourage you to buy at a premium. Searching Incognito will not allow the browsers to do this and if prices change it is because they are genuinely running out of seats etc.
Skyscanner
Using Skyscanner is possibly the simplest platform to search for and buy flights from. It acts as a comparison site and gives you the cheapest cost every time. Personally we have found that booking one way flights instead of return flights has saved us money. Research both but don’t always think that the round trip/return flights offer is the cheapest.
Another tip for getting the cheapest possible flight is to look at neighbouring airports. Flights from London as opposed to Bristol are usually cheaper but the travel to London racks up additional costs. It is important to weigh up all costs and your time wisely.
When using Skyscanner you can click on the date section and opt the whole month to see a similar price guide as below. As we said earlier this is a perfect example of booking early, enabling us to get a flight from Bristol to Amsterdam for just £24 in May, one month in advance.
If we were to then select that £24 flight it would highlight all of the times and airlines that are flying from Bristol to Amsterdam on that day. The site also has a nifty detail showing the ‘best’, ‘cheapest’ and ‘fastest’ flights for this date.
Not sure where to go?
Another wonderful integration into this search engine is the ease to search globally for flights. If you are unsure of where to go and only have an idea of dates in your head try searching the world. Below we show you how to do this, prices are for exactly one month in advance.
Again, we always select one-way flights to get an idea of the price to each destination, maybe travelling back from a connecting country to save money. You can click on ‘To’ and ‘Can’t decided where?’ which takes you to a list of the cheapest countries in the world with flights from your chosen airport, in this case ‘Bristol’ to destinations worldwide.
Now you can see first hand how it is possible to fly to Vienna In Austria for example for £9 each or Ireland for £10, just one month in advance. Remember that these prices are without checked luggage and only include hand luggage. Look at the price differences if we were to do the same search but only one week in advance:
Is this enough to highlight how important booking in advance is to save your well earned dollar? Honestly, when creating this blog we nearly booked flights to travel somewhere in Europe! You can also check out hotels in the desired location for the same dates at the same time. A really crafty tool.
You can check out all that ‘Skyscanner’ has to offer here!
How to get to the airport?
When booking your flight working out how long you plan to travel for and how many there are of you travelling together can hugely impact how you travel to and from the airport. If we are travelling for only a few days up to a week we tend to drive and book the car in to park at the airport. Any more than a week and it starts to get expensive. This is when we would look into either paying a friend/taxi or public transport. Although do not leave the timings too close and get to the airport two hours in advance especially if booking in luggage or travelling by public transport. Try and incorporate traffic, late pickups and delays. The last thing you want is to miss your flight because you didn’t want to get up that extra hour early.
Optional Extras/Luggage costs
When booking through Skyscanner remember the flights chosen more than likely do not include checked/hold baggage or seat allocation. These can be bought at an extra cost through the airlines, again book in advance and save money. Seat allocation can cost as much as £14 extra per person. Some airlines like EasyJet tend to put the two of us sitting together when checking in via the EasyJet app but other airlines don’t, purely to make you spend more. Really think whether this is a necessity for you and your fellow travellers. For example when we fly from London to Amsterdam we never even consider booking seats because it is only a one hour flight. 90% of the time we sit next to each other just by checking in together, the other 10% we would just ask the person next to one of us if he/she wants to switch seats. Hold baggage can sometimes be more than the flight itself so really think whether it is necessary. We tend to travel mostly by hand luggage, even on our two-week holiday in Malta we survived on hand luggage only, but in some cases extra luggage is just so handy. In this case we would purchase one extra bag and pack items in together. This tip will save you so much money and make travelling by air so much more accessible.
Now, with these additional prices the flight is no longer the face value of £18 but could potentially cost you £43.50 with standard seat allocation and a 23kg hold bag. Remember this is still one way so you will have to at least pay for the baggage upgrade on the way back. Just discuss whether this is worth it for you and your fellow travellers.
What to take on the plane?
This section is all dependent on the length of time spent on the aircraft. If you are on board for a short period of time you can get away with minimal supplies. Your phone, music and a book can pass the time very well whereas a longer trip might need additional pleasantries to help keep you sane. There is nothing worse than sitting next to a smelly person, believe us, actually, maybe a screaming child beats this.
Checking In in advance
Our last tip would be to Check In online as soon as possible. This might help with the possibility of sitting next to your fellow passengers and will ensure no additional charges are made if you don’t check in on time. If possible download the airlines app and Check In through this. The app will then store your boarding pass and all essential information for the flight which we screenshot to enter through security and passport control. Ensure that you carry all documents needed to travel whether they are hard copies or on your phone. Don’t let your phone die and don’t forget your PASSPORT.
Safe Travels!
Find out some of the places we’ve flown to in South East Asia.
Travelling Translated
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