Before you read this, I need to confess to one thing. I am kind of a compulsive shopper… for flight tickets! I just love buying them! Well, but only the cheap flights! Picture this, I found a ticket both ways to Seychelles for 300 euros and a flight from New Zealand to Barcelona for 30 euros. Speaking of which you probably are curious how the hell it can even exist?! 30 euros is cheaper than a bus ride from one city to another, or a dinner, or grocery shopping, right? Let me introduce you to flight hacking!
Flight hacking
In a nutshell, flight hacking is travelling for the least money possible. Good news is that anybody can learn how to find cheap flights! And you can learn it right here with my FREE mini-course “Time to Fly! Become a flight hacker”. I have stuffed this course with a lot of methods I use on a daily basis.
It is no secret that now in the World full of low-cost airlines, anybody can fly for 10-20 euros from one European city to another. But how about cross-continental flights? Well, they are usually way more expensive. But don’t worry you can get them cheaper, just read on!
The key to finding cheap flights is doing a smart stopover! A stopover that makes you save money because you can change to a different connection or a low-fare airline. But how do we know which stopover is reasonable and money-saving and which is the opposite? There are a few fast and easy ways to do it.
Many airlines flying to international destinations have to stop somewhere, usually at their home hub. What many travellers don’t know is that some airlines offer to prolong a layover to make it a stopover (stopover is a more than 24h long layover) for no additional cost.
Flying to Asia from Europe? Stop in Dubai with Emirates or in Abu Dhabi with Etihad! Flying to Europe from the USA? Stop in Iceland with Icelandair, etc. For more examples of the most popular stopover hubs, sign up for my free flight hacking mini course.
Those are obviously just some of many examples. The real flight hacker jackpot is scoring stopovers with airlines like AirSeychelles, AirMauritius, etc.
The 30 euro ticket from Auckland to Barcelona
Ok, let’s get to the point. Ever since I knew about the common hubs for stopovers, I decided to follow Emirates, Qatar Airways and Etihad on their social media accounts to spot cheap flight and promos from UAE.
Bingo!
The moment Qatar Airways has announced its Treasure Hunt promotion, I was already navigating and refreshing their website nervously. Treasure Hunt is a real deal for flight hackers/compulsive flights buyers! It works like this: there are gold tickets (tickets where you only pay for taxes) hidden between normal tickets for selected destinations and months. In this case, there were some gold tickets hidden for Auckland, Seychelles, Singapore, and Windhoek. The challenge is that you only have an hour to find your treasure, while you don’t know the dates nor the outbound airports.
AND OMG THERE IT WAS! MY PRECIOUS!!!
Of course, you might say: Pff, this is just a matter of luck!
Well, you always need some luck, but now you can become a real flight hacker as I share with you my strategy for dividing tickets into perfect stopovers 😉
DYI: Perfect stopover
Let’s imagine for a moment that you are based in New York City, and you would like to travel to Thailand. It is logical that you will need to stop somewhere on the way, most probably in Europe. But how do you know where?
Easy peasy! Here is what you need to do:
1. Enter skyscanner.net
2. Search for Flights from NYC to Everywhere
3. Scroll down to find the first European country (in this case Sweden or Norway)
4. Let’s now check how much it costs to go from Norway to Thailand (just because – FJORDS!!!) on a seperate ticket
BINGO! In total, we would pay 118€+127€= 245€ with an ultracool stopover in Norway! That is more than 200€ of savings comparing to a direct flight!
And imagine if you were flying from a less popular destination that only a few airlines operate. You could save even more!
Want to learn even more tricks on finding cheap flights and be the first one to know about flight promos? Grab my free flight hacking mini course right now :)!
Pin it for later!
This is such a brilliant idea. Thanks for sharing your tips.
This is so great! I am planning a trip to Italy so I will check out these tips!
Thanks for sharing! I was already obsessed with skyscanner, but will have to keep a watch for the Treasure Hunt promotions.
Hi Marta! Found your post from We Are Travel Girls – thank you so much for these tips! Downloading your free course NOW. 🙂
http://www.wonderlandsam.com
OH MY GOODNESS WHAT A STEAL! Currently trying to get a cheap flight to Iceland from LA!
I have never heard before of the Treasure Hunt! And the trick with the stopovers is priceless! Bookmarking your post! Thank you!!!
Omg stop this post is awesome. I felt like you were Willy Wonka finding the golden ticket!! I love your flight hacking details and will definitely be trying them out!! I have been wanting to do the Iceland stopover actually!
This is incredible. There are actually crazy bargains like these out there. All you have to do it keep hunting. Wow!
This is incredible, thank you for the amazing tips!
http://www.ericavoyage.com
Such good tips! And awesome to see that you found them without having an error fare – Skyscanner is also my go-to flight search engine of choice 😀
What great tips – I will definitely use them the next we are booking flights!
That’s an unbelievable deal! I will try to use these tips. I am a teacher so I can’t choose my vacation days, which sometimes makes it hard to take advantage of flight deals. But who wouldn’t want to go to Norway and then Thailand?
That’s such a bargain! Congrats Marta, I hope to go to NZ one day ..!
That’s amazing! Thanks for the great tips. Have bookmarked your post for my reference!
That is an incredible deal!! I love Skyscanner. It is my go-to flight search app. I can’t preach about it enough.
great deal, congrats for snagging it up!
This is really interesting! Thank you for these tips, I will have them in mind while looking for my next holiday location! Great deal btw, you are great at this!
Thanks for all the great advice for cheap tickets for travel. I will have to put it to good use.
This is so helpful I’m currently planning a trip so, I’ll definitely be checking out skyscanner