Booking flights can be extremely stressful as, for most of us, the way airlines price their flights is a complete mystery.
There are frequent rumours that internet cookies save your searches and then allow airlines to hike the price.
There are also conflicting claims about the best way to get the cheapest deal: should you go direct or use a comparison tool to get you the very best deal?
So what’s fact and what’s fiction? We have busted five of the most common flight booking myths.
Jetting off: Get the best price by searching several comparison sites
1) A search engine will compare ALL prices
There are hundreds of search tools out there now claiming to do the hard work of comparing flights or holiday prices for you.
As a comparison tool we expect them to search the whole of the web, and presume that means we need only to check one to get the very best price.
However some may miss certain deals, list them incorrectly or their software may work slightly differently.
According to analysis of 60 different flight routes from London, Manchester and Birmingham by Cheapflightsfinder.com, using a single comparison tool isn’t enough.
Its tool allows you to plug in your criteria and search across several comparison tools at once – a useful shortcut to ensure you get the very best price.
It found that Skyscanner’s search tool was the most likely to discover the cheapest flights.
- Skyscanner revealed the cheapest flight 40 per cent of the time.
- Momondo revealed the cheapest flight 38 per cent of the time.
- Kayak revealed the cheapest flight 36 per cent of the time.
- Jetcost revealed the cheapest flight 13 per cent of the time.
- Cheapflights and Dohop revealed the cheapest flight 35 per cent of the time.
- Google flights revealed the cheapest flight 18 per cent of the time.
This is Money tested this out ourselves across Cheapflights.co.uk, Google, Dehop, Skyscanner, Kayak and Momondo.
On a return flight from London to Rome in June next year. Dehop offered the cheapest price at £63 compared to Momondo at £73 for exactly the same Ryanair flights – a difference of £9.
It was a similar story when flying from London to Colombo in Sri Lanka with the same Sri Lankan Airlines flight costing £570 via Google compared to £513 through Momondo, Cheapflights and Kayak.
We also found that while most of the comparison tools showed the same flight as the cheapest, just with differing prices, some included other airlines that came out cheaper still.
2) Go direct to get the best deal
It’s often presumed that just as some hotels offer cheaper deals when you call them direct, airlines advertise cheaper prices on their own sites than shown via a search tool.
However according to Cheapflightsfinder.com this isn’t actually the case as often travel agents buy in bulk and can therefore offer a cheaper price.
A quick tip, most airlines will appear on price comparison sites these days, but there may be a couple that don’t such as American Airlines and Southwest Airlines.
Cheapflightsfinder.com’s chief executive Shahab Siddiqu says: ‘One way we recommend achieving peace of mind is by comparing your options on multiple flight comparison sites.
‘This method greatly increases your booking options and where you decide to spend your hard-earned cash.’
Plugging in an a few example flights we found that going through a comparison tool got a better deal, although not by an enormous amount. We checked a few destinations from UK airports in June next year.
There was a difference of £43 on the same Emirates flight from Manchester to Sydney booked through Skyscanner compared to going direct.
A return trip to Cairo with BA came out £15 cheaper through Kayak and Cheapflights.
A flight from Bristol to Marakesh with EasyJet cost £30 more through its own website than Momondo and Kayak.
Dream destinations: Error fare websites claim to highlight impossibly low flight prices caused by human error or computer glitches
3) Error fares are as rare as hen’s teeth
Airline glitches, human error and flash sales see a lucky few holidaymakers nabbing impossibly cheap air fares to dream destinations – not something most travellers hold out for.
There are some companies that promise to ferret out these super cheap deals for you delivered to your inbox, or set up pricing alerts for a fee.
But according to Cheapflightsfinder.com data they are actually easier to come by than most people think, if you use a few clever tactics.
Siddiqui explains: ‘In recent times new sites have popped up from self-proclaimed flight hackers, who charge a premium for locating cheap online deals. However, it is fairly easy to find flash fares and error fares by yourself.
‘Travellers simply have to make a broad search for ‘everywhere’ on websites which allow this and then look for the lowest prices. Skyscanner, Kayak and Google flights allow broad searches to anywhere at any time, enabling you to see the best flash fares in seconds.’
This is Money tested this out.
We ran a search on Skyscanner for any date, any destination and it turned up the following return flights:
- London to New York for £205
- London to Mykonos for £138,
- London to Iceland for £52,
- London to Brisbane, Australia for £519
- London to Florence for £98.
Not bad at first look. Take the London to New York example, that’s £73 cheaper than the cost of flights on the same route in six months’ time.
It’s doubtful that this is going to be the key for families to get cheaper flights though. Most of us don’t have time to run a search everyday just to check if there are any cheap deals or have the flexibility to book at any old time.
A more realistic option is to use the free alerts sent out by error fare websites, and keep an eye out for any cheap deals that fit your criteria.
Some of the best include Secret Flying, Fly4free, flynous and cheapflightslab or Jack’s flight club.
A few examples of cheap deals include return trips from London to Orlando for £279 return – £103 cheaper than the best deal This is Money could see booking in six months time.
We also found deals for Manchester to San Francisco for £300 or London to Buenos-Aires for £416.
But remember if it’s a mistake, companies will want to pull the deal as soon as possible so a newsletter will alert you as soon as they are spotted.
Remember, while airlines may not always honour the pricing mistake they will always refund the money if there is a mistake.
4) Clearing your browser gets you a better deal
This one causes much confusion. If you have your eye on a flight and revisit the search several times before you buy the price often goes up – it’s as if they know.
This is often blamed on your browser’s cookies.
According to Cheapflightsfinder.com’s research however it isn’t actually the case according to its research of 60 flights, searched with both cookies enabled and disabled.
Siddiqui says: ‘We found this made zero difference in flight price.
‘The only downside is you may see adverts for the search engine on other sites as your digital footprint shows you have been looking for particular flights on a particular site.’
When we tested this theory we found the same. This is Money checked the same flight to Rome from London Stansted on the same computer and other devices over the course of a week and found the prices unchanged.
Either way, an easy fix is to use incognito mode or clear your cookies through your browser options.
Some have also suggested that buying on mobile devices can sometimes turn up cheaper prices, so it could be worth giving this a go too.
Virtual Private Network: Would you go to such lengths to get a cheaper flight?
5) Spoofing your location can save you £100s
The next cheap flight hack isn’t a common myth, but it’s an interesting one anyway.
It involves using a special online tool that tricks websites into thinking you are surfing the web from a different country.
The reason this can get you a cheaper deal in theory is that companies charge slightly different prices according to where in the world you are booking from.
They know this from your computer’s IP address. There are however special plugins called virtual private networks (VPNs) you can download thateffectively cloak your IP address, and make it look like you are browsing in a different country.
These tools are legal, except for in some countries such as China where government restrictions are in place.
According to independent VPN comparison tool, thebestvpn.com, using one of these tools when buying flights can save hundreds of pounds particularly on long haul flights.
When it checked, the cheapest flight from Heathrow to LA from a UK IP address came out at £319. The same flight with an US IP address cost £303 – a £16 saving.
Another example they gave shows much higher savings though.
They found that a flight from Kuala Lumpur to LAX with United Airlines booked in Poland costs £989.19, compared to booking from the US where it cost almost double at £1,839.27.
We asked Cheapflightsfinder.com’s Siddiqui what he thought – he said: ‘It’s true that different countries offer different pricing, however consumers should check the terms and conditions of each site to make sure their transaction is valid.
‘Some search engines – like Dohop for example – check foreign sites for cheaper fares.
‘Moreover, lots of search engines have dedicated domains for other territories and it can be worth using a VPN to access those sites to see how fares differ from your local version of the same site.’
The jury’s still out on this one. This could be a huge money saver if true, but you will need to be careful about the terms and conditions.
Some may specify that you need to live in a certain country in order to book a flight.
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