Flying cheap involves a lot more than simply grabbing a $40 deal and hoping for the best, and the regulars know all the proper hacks. They’re able to save a lot of time & money, as well as stress. Let’s look at a few of these hacks. Here are twelve budget airline tricks that frequent fliers use, which go beyond the usual tips to “roll your clothes.”
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They Wait to Check-in Until the Last Possible Minute
On most budget airlines, the seat they assign you depends on when you check in, and earlier doesn’t always mean better. Smart travelers know this, and so they’ll wait until just before check-in closes to see if they get placed in a better spot, especially since airlines often fill the middle seats first. This leaves the empty window or aisle seats until the end, and while it doesn’t always work, when it does, you get a decent seat without paying for it.
They Pack a Travel Jacket
A travel jacket with deep pockets is essentially a wearable suitcase, and some of the best ones come with around 15 pockets—that’s more than enough for your phone & snacks. You might even be able to fit a pair of shoes in there, if you get creative. Most airlines don’t count what you’re wearing as luggage, as long as it’s not obvious, so lots of people just load up and skip the baggage fees.
They Buy Add-Ons Through Third Parties
Instead of getting upsold by the airline at checkout, these smart travelers take a step back and look around on booking sites like Kiwi or Trip.com. These sites sometimes include extras like priority boarding for a lot cheaper than with the airline, so you’re getting the same perk. You’ll need to double-check with the provider, though, just in case there are some different rules about doing so.
They Use Route Hopping
There’s no point flying direct when you could save cash with a little detour, so frequent fliers will piece together one-way tickets across different cities to find the best deal. For example, a Chicago–Madrid flight might be $800, but Chicago–Lisbon-Madrid could cost half that—that’s a price difference that’s worth it. Sometimes, they’ll even get an extra day’s vacation in another city in doing so.
They Transit to Nearby Cities
Likewise, flying out of your city may cost a fortune, and if that happens, check the bus schedules—lots of budget travelers go to a nearby airport to fly for cheaper. You could take the Megabus from LA to San Diego to get a better flight deal, which may add a little extra travel time, but will save you hundreds. The only hassle is remembering to go to the right airport.
They Use Airport Lounge Day Passes
You really don’t need a $12 cheese tray mid-air when you could just get a better lounge experience before the flight. A lot of fliers will get a one-time lounge pass—some cost less than what you’d spend on in-flight snacks—so they can eat real food and charge their phone. This way, they’ll board feeling full & happy, which beats squishing crackers in row 29.
They Use a Dummy Booking
The internet remembers everything, including how many times you checked that flight, so these people will use incognito mode & switch devices to avoid dynamic pricing. Essentially, they’re catfishing the booking system to get a better deal, and there’s nothing wrong with doing that. What’s the point in paying extra for the same thing?
They Book With Foreign-Language Versions
You don’t need to be fluent to use a foreign language site, just give it a few taps and switch the site to French or Italian—the same flight could be cheaper. The language version sometimes changes what promos are visible, and if you have Google Translate open in another tab, you should be good to go. You might even notice that the bag fees are slightly lower or that extra service bundles are priced differently on certain language versions.
They Use Currency Differences to Pay Less
Likewise, if you’ve never messed around with the currency selector before paying, you’re missing out, and some fliers change the country to wherever the airline’s based. Of course, you’ll need to do the math and have a debit card that doesn’t charge foreign fees, but it takes less than a minute & could take $20 or more off your total. It works best on European low-cost sites that don’t auto-lock your region during checkout.
They Combine Multiple One-Way Tickets
Round trips are risky with budget airlines because if you cancel one part, the whole thing gets messy, which is why experienced travelers just book one-ways. Go out with one airline, back with another, whatever’s cheapest, so that if plans change, you only lose one side of the trip. You could also get the lowest possible price on each leg, since one airline might be cheaper going out, but another might be better coming back.
They Use Voucher Glitches From Promo Codes
Sometimes a discount code sticks around longer than it’s supposed to, even after the deal ends, and travelers who know the system will add a flight to their cart during a promo and then close the tab. They’ll come back the next day—if the code still works, great, if not, no harm done. It’s one of those “just try it and see” tricks that actually works more often than you might realize, although it is quite random.
They Book Known Delay Routes
That’s right—some people actually hope for a delay because they know if a flight lands over three hours late in Europe, there’s money in it, due to EU rules saying passengers must receive a few hundred euros in compensation if the delay is the airline’s fault. Sites like FlightRadar24 show which routes are late all the time, and while it may be high risk, it could also be high reward. You may even want to keep track of which airports are more prone to late departures and pick flights with those patterns.
Disclaimer: This list is solely the author’s opinion based on research and publicly available information.
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