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  Airfare Booking Strategies

Dozens of “low-cost” airlines have sprouted up over the last couple of decades and it is now possible to fly between almost any two cities within Europe or Asia for incredibly low prices.

Rather than booking a flight directly to your destination, you may be able to travel much more cheaply by buying the cheapest convenient flight to a “hub” airport in that region of the world and then buying a separate discount flight to your final destination.

For example, let’s say you want to travel from Atlanta to Prague in April. Airfares directly to Prague are around $1,300. But you can fly nonstop to London from Atlanta for $760 and buy a separate nonstop to Prague on Smart Wings for $80. While you are at it, you can spend a few extra days visiting London. And, of course, you can add additional destinations or fly home from a nearby city such as Warsaw.

The biggest drawback to this approach is that if your first flight is delayed and you miss your second flight, neither airline is going to be particularly concerned about helping you out. Your low-cost carrier may take pity on you, but your long-haul airline won’t care that they caused you to miss a flight which wasn’t included as part of their reservation. Of course, if you are making a stopover between flights, there is much less risk, as you will have more time to accommodate any delays.

Step 1: Check the price for flights that go all the way to your destination

You won’t always save money by cobbling together a long-haul flight to a hub and a separate low-cost flight to your final destination. Or the savings might not be large enough to be worth dealing with the additional complications of booking separate trips and rechecking any luggage.

Before you start shopping for two separate tickets, make sure you check the pricing and timing that you can get with a “normal” reservation.

Step 2: Finding well-priced flights to a hub city

The next step is to find fares to possible hub cities in the region you want to fly to. Ideally, you’d fly nonstop to the hub, so that the total trip is only two flights. But, if you don’t live in a typical gateway city, you might need to fly to a different US city (like New York) first, and then to the hub from there.

Kayak has an explore mode where you can view approximate fares from your home city to anywhere in the world. Here is a view of all the nonstops from Atlanta to Europe in April. London seems likely to be your best choice.

Another convenient tool is Google Flights.  Looking at some specific dates, it looks like Paris and Stuttgart are likely to be even better choices than London.  

Step 3: Find flight to your final destination

Once you’ve found a few well-priced long-haul flights, you can check the fares from there to your final destination.  You’ll want to check multiple different hubs, not just the cheapest one, as that might lead to a lower overall cost or better connection timing. Make sure to check flights that leave at least a few hours after you arrive in your initial destination. You may need some time to pick up your bags and recheck them for your final flight and you'll want to be able to accommodate any flight delays.

Two tools that have great support for discount airlines are Momondo and Skyscanner. But you can usually get good results in Kayak and Google Flights, as well.

When you fly to a city like London, there is a good chance that you’ll need to switch airports to connect with a low-cost carrier. This can be true even in cities which only have a single primary airport, because low-cost carriers are often based in less-often-used airports in the vicinity of the city, rather than at the main airport. You need to factor this transfer into your planning, in terms of convenience, price, and timing. It can be worth more money to choose flights that avoid the need for an airport change. 

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