Google Flights

Of all the flight search tools, this is still our favourite -especially when we have a plan of exactly where we want to go.

Here’s why we love this tool the best. Firstly, it lets you see months worth of prices at once in a convenient calendar and it lets you subscribe to a certain search to get updates whenever the price changes. Google Flights is very flexible when searching vague destinations like “South America” which allows you to see the cheapest destinations within a geographical area without searching them one by one.

Travelzoo

This one might surprise you because it has been around forever and seems kind of basic. However, we’ve found some amazing deal on Travelzoo. I am subscribed to both the American (I think NYC departures) and Canada (Toronto departures). We’ve found amazing short package deals that we didn’t see anywhere else. So if you do not find another email in your inbox and like reading travel deals like me, then go ahead and subscribe.

YYZ Deals

Chris Myden has been entertaining me with his travel deals blog for years. He truly has some amazing offers that usually depart from YYZ (Toronto). If you’re looking for last minute or just crazy prices then it’s worth subscribing.

Flightlist

This is a new search tool that we’ve been using a lot lately. The website advertises itself as the to find alternate routes & cheap, one-way flights within a departure date range. They do isolate incredible one way flights that might have strange stopovers but who doesn’t love a strange stopover? We have blogged about it before and got a thank you from the owner.

Book Direct When Possible

We do lots of research before booking but always try to book direct when actually purchasing a ticket. We feel the same about hotels. When you book from an aggregator, sometimes they do not link to all of the features that an airline site does. For example, you may not be able to select a seat right away or book a meal.

Expedia

This is contradicting the last recommendation but there are times that you want to book with an aggregator. Sometimes you book connecting flights on different airlines and you want the security of knowing your ticket is connected. This is important in case of leg is delayed For example, we recently booked a flight for Colombia to Hawaii through LAX. You could not book this whole flight on the airline websites so we booked on an aggregator. You still have to be careful that the legs are linked because sometimes they still aren’t.