A common complaint people have against traveling is that they find it to be too expensive. Actually, I’ve found that many people only think traveling is extremely expensive, when really, they don’t realize that traveling can be quite affordable.
The key to cheap travel? Be flexible!! Work and school schedules can make it hard to do spur-of-the-moment trips, but when you can take off on random days (like a Tuesday-Tuesday trip), you can actually save some big bucks. The weekends are high travel periods, especially for business professionals, so tickets are often more expensive.
And if you’re a college student who loves to travel, try arranging your class schedule for optimal traveling opportunities. It is possible, and it’s so, so beneficial. You can take long weekend trips across the country, and if you get a few days off of classes during the semester, you can take an even longer trip because your schedule is suited for traveling! *Yes, I have done this type of class scheduling for multiple semesters #traveladdict
Personally, I’ve found Tuesdays to be the least expensive day to purchasing flights and Wednesdays usually are cheaper for flying (especially Wednesday nights). If you have planned your trip far enough in advance, purchasing tickets earlier can also be a way to save lotsss of money.
Recently I went on a girls trip with two of my friends to New York City for a long weekend. We opted to go during October, which is a slower travel period. Most people are back in school, and they usually wait until November, December, and January to start their traveling for the holiday season. But I was still extremely surprised when I noticed that my flight home was only going to be FORTY DOLLARS. HOW?!
Here’s how it worked out:
Since my class schedule was pretty flexible, I didn’t have any classes on Monday. Sometimes Mondays are an expensive day to fly (partly because of businesses sending their employees back home after weekend business trips or others traveling on their days off of work/school), but *again with the importance of being flexible* it is definitely possible to find cheap flights on any day of the week. I searched for flights leaving the JFK airport anytime during Monday. I ended up finding a flight at 8:00 p.m. for only $40 on Jetblue. This was perfect – I could spend time exploring the city with my friends during the day, and then fly home at night AND still be able to make it to my classes on Tuesday. I had only brought a backpack for the weekend, so I didn’t have to worry about paying for baggage fees.
I didn’t have to use any flight mileage points, and I didn’t have to sign up for any credit cards or rewards systems in order to get this flight. So don’t be discouraged if flights to your dream destination are expensive right now. Keep checking the websites of multiple airlines and research what times of the year are the least expensive to fly to your destination. Good luck!
Keep checking back because I’ll be sharing more money saving tips for traveling soon!
You can read my New York City guide here.
How do you save money on airlines? Let me know in the comments below!
The Bohemian Mermaid 
Nice post! Out of curiosity, do you have any membership with airlines that you build up points to use towards flying?
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Thanks Joe! I do have memberships with a few airlines, but actually have rarely ever used my points. Within the US, I like to fly with Southwest and I have racked up a lot of points with them, but not enough for a free flight yet. Typically, I just search for flights on travel websites like Kayak, and see whatever airline is offering the cheapest flight. Since I fly with whatever airline is the least expensive, I usually don’t earn enough points before they expire (which happens within about a year usually). But I know people who only use the same airline every time they fly and they’ve gotten some good deals on flights. Have you used any memberships with airlines?
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