How to Find the Best Flights
In this post I will share my personal method on how to find the best flights. By the words how to find the BEST flights I basically mean you get from point A to point B in the fastest and cheapest way possible.
Featured Image: View from the plane entering Kyrgyzstan.
Right Image: Airport in Japan at night.
How to Find the Best Flights
1. Choose Your Travel Date
It is preferable to book at least one month in advance.
Know the exact date you want to travel? Go to step two.
If your travel date is flexible for up to a week either side then choose Tuesday and go to step two.
For those of you whose dates are flexible for 2+ weeks then go to Matrix.itasoftware.com and use the “see calender of lowest fares” option. It won’t give you the cheapest flights (it will sometimes) but they will give you a general idea of the cheaper days in a month.
2. Search in Jet Radar
JetRadar.com is by far my favorite flight comparison website. You may have realized this because I promote them almost exclusively when it comes to flights. They deserve it. They don’t just compare the airlines like most booking sites, they compare all the major airline booking sites. This means the number of flights in the system is all the booking sites combined and you get the very best price from all of them.
If your flight day is flexible then check a few days either side also to see the best deals. If your flight is not urgent then create a price alert.
Occasionally there are no search results. I assume this is because there is no partnership of airlines that go from the departure point to the destination. You need to consult lonely planet and/or WikiTravel.org. Between these two sources of information you will discover which cities to use as intermediaries to your destination (or you may need to use some other mode of transport).
Once you know the intermediaries then do a few quick searches to find out which flight path will be cheapest. Make sure you use the same date for searches from the departure to the intermediaries and the same date (which can be different from the previous date) from the intermediaries to the destination.
This sounds like it will be a lot of searching but it isn’t really. This is because if Jetradar has no search results it means where-ever you are flying to is fairly remote. There are probably only a couple of places that it is possible to fly in from.
When choosing your connecting flights, i.e., not one the airline or booking site has selected for you, then it is best to give yourself at least a two hour layover, preferably 3+.
3. Search in Skiplagged
Skiplagged.com specializes in hidden ticketing. Hidden ticketing is when there is a lower-priced flight that connects through the place you actually want to fly to, so you just get off at the connection instead of flying all the way through.
There are two catches if you use hidden ticketing:
Do not buy a round-trip ticket.
Do not check-in luggage.
4. Pick Your Flight Path
Pick the flight path you like best of the results from Jet Radar and Skiplagged.
5. Search the Connections Separately
When your flight has connections it is worth seeing how much those flights would cost individually. Often it is cheaper than having the airline make the connection for you.
Use jetlagged to search this.
Note: Only do this when the layover is at least two hours, preferably three or more. This is because if you miss your connecting flight and you booked them separately then it’s your fault, but if the airline or jetradar did it then they will compensate you, e.g., put you on the next flight.
5. Check the Airlines Website
Sometimes the airline is cheaper, sometimes it isn’t. Much of the time it is the same.
Also, sometimes jetradar figures out connections that the airline does not directly offer, which is another advantage of using jetradar.
5. Book Your Flight
Now you have to choose whether to book through JetRadar.com or the actual website. Here are the things to consider.
When the airlines website is the same price or cheaper than JetRadar then book through them. In most cases it’s best to go directly though the airline in case anything goes wrong.
If JetRadar has made a connection that the airline does not do, then book with JetRadar. If the connection is missed then the booking site should compensate you, of course, make sure you check the fine print of the booking site you use.
Do you have your own method on how to find the best flights? Share it (or anything else you want to say) in the comments 
