How I Booked Flights as a Student
This is my tried and true travel method. I wrote an article about how I booked my most recent trip to Spain by doing this so you can see it working in real life.
- Figure out when you can travel and PLAN EARLY
You are obviously restricted to school scheduled breaks and summers off. This is manageable and can be affordable if you book as far in advance as humanly possible. Those dates are always the most expensive, but I have traveled to Europe in August for less than $400 roundtrip because I booked 9 months ahead of time. You have to be willing to start early before the airline begins to collect its data on those routes, and can therefore jack up the prices.
If you have already dropped the proverbial ball or maybe you didn’t know that you could travel until last-minute, you can still get student deals on Student Universe. The catch is that you might have a layover that is several hours to up to an entire 24 hours long, and its usually in a place in Eastern Bum Fuck (they probably have an amazing passport stamp tho). If you are willing to put up with this, you can usually get some pretty cheap flights with your student email address.
- Start by looking at*one-way* destinations on Google Flights
Write down where you want to go.
Plug in the specific date that you can leave, a major origin city, and hit “Explore All” on the map: This will show you the prices to get to most destinations all over the world given your rough deadline but definitive starting location. Starting your search one-way can also help you figure out if leaving one day earlier/later will be cheaper.
Write down where it is actually cheapest to go.
Some destinations may surprise you with how affordable they are. Didn’t realize that Punta Cana is an absolute garbage vacation destination and that you could get to some hot springs in Iceland for the same price? Save yourself that shot of penicillin in the ass, and consider hiking around volcanoes instead
3. Figure out how much it will cost you to get from the cheapest location to the desired location
Remember where you wanted to go, lets pretend Rome from New York.
Remember where it was actually cheapest to go, probably London from New York.
If its $400 to get to Rome, but its only $120 to get to London, consider booking one-way to London and making your own connection to Rome (or maybe just staying in London you unpleasable menace).
Flights connecting major cities in Europe, like London to Rome, are cheaper than the shit bottles of vodka most college guys inexplicably have up on display on a shelf somewhere in their apartment (usually next to shit rum and shit whiskey). They are also extremely frequent and sometimes leave every hour of the day.
Making your own connections on the same day can get tricky because you will have to give yourself at least two hours to pick up your bag and re-check it. If you have no checked luggage, you will still have to do the whole security and TSA song and dance all over again as well.
As a student, I always liked to do the one-way search first because it lets you break up the cost of your trip into smaller pieces over time:
- You can book the one-way flight with one paycheck
- Wait a month or two before you book your next flight back
- Eventually book the connections between cheap those major flights
- And finally settle on a place to stay with your remaining budget
In my experience, this never ends up costing more than the roundtrip ticket. Even if it does, the flexibility it gives you to save your money long term and work on a monthly budget is worth it.
If you have a budget that lets you jump right into a roundtrip ticket, the same method above will still work (and also, fuck you). Lets stick with the same Rome and London example: Flying roundtrip in and out of London could be $300, whereas roundtrip in and out of Rome directly is $600:
- Book the roundtrip to London and arrange for your own separate flights in and out of Rome.
- Then mentally prepare yourself for some exhausting travel days (but you’d be exhausted either way so consider this you rallying, take a shot and rub some dirt in it).
- If the two cities in question are connected by the high-speed train system, then this process becomes easier and you can skip the airport all together and do the train as your connection instead.
If you just asked yourself if London and Rome are connected by a train, then there’s nothing I can do to help you at this point. “You are awarded no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.”
Note: Keep track of checked bag costs and weight limits. Sometimes you get a free checked bag and sometimes its $40. Sometimes the checked bag fee is doubled if you wait to pay at the airport instead of paying online in advance. Usually the weight limit is in kilograms and is much lower than the domestic American airline limits you are used to (usually only 30-40lbs compared to 50lbs).
4. Head to Momondo.com For the Cheapest Flights
Most travel bloggers will agree that Momondo will always have the cheapest flights. If you get an idea for where the cheapest locations are via Google Flights, and you find specific flights you like, odds are Momondo will have it cheaper. They search all international budget airlines and websites that you’ve never even heard of before. You can also use them for booking hotels.
You have no excuses now. Lets fucking gooooooooo.