If you know me, you know that I promote using rewards cards to get free or cheap flights around the world. But that's not what this post is about. This post is about finding the least expensive options for paying out of pocket. Here are 5 fairly simple ways you can save some dough on your next flight.

1. Be flexible.

If you are flexible about where you go and when you fly, you can save a lot of money. Choose your date and destination wisely. Flying at peak season will cost you up to double what it would cost to fly in a low or shoulder season. If you have a specific destination that you really want to travel to, do some research and figure out the best time to go. This will lower not only your flight costs, but also hotel costs.

If you are open to where you go, try Google Flights Explore. If you are flexible with your destination but not dates, use the map view. If you are flexible with your dates, but not destination, use the graphs. 

ITA Flight Matrix is another tool (that most people have never heard of!) that makes flight comparisons with flexibility easy. You can price compare not only by the dates you depart, but also the number of days at your destination. Check out the price differences in these business class options:

Using ITA Flight Matrix I was able to find economy round trip tickets to Hamburg and back for $472 with a one day stopover in Reykjavik. The lowest price I could find anywhere else was about $700 because the other sites didn’t take into account a stopover.

If you can't find any good flights going directly to your destination, try being flexible about where you fly into and then find a cheap budget flight from there (more about budget airlines next.) For example, if you want to travel to Rome and can't find a good flight, you can often times find cheap flights from the US to Dublin or London. If you fly directly there, you can then book a budget airline flight to Rome. Some of those budget airline flights can be as cheap as $10 when you're really lucky.

BUDGET AIRLINES

Budget airlines offer a no frills flight for a fraction of other fares. Budget airline flights are not always comfortable and I would not choose to fly on a budget airline for a longer flight. But they can be a great way to save money on shorter flights. For more information about some of the extra fees you’ll find with budget airlines, read this article.

Wikipedia shows an extensive list of budget airlines around the world. (wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_low-cost_airlines) This is a helpful resource to start your research. Airlines are listed by continent and country so you can find which airlines will be relevant to you.

Many of these budget airlines are not included in common flight booking sites, so you may have to search directly on the airline website. Skyscanner is a search engine that includes more budget airlines than other booking sites. To see if a budget airline is included on the the booking site you are using, click on “filter by airline” to search for it.  

CLEAR COOKIES OR GO INCOGNITO

Some people claim that they can find better prices with this hack while others call it a total lie. The theory is that airlines track your IP address and behavior and increase your flight cost when you keep checking on the same flight, motivating you to buy faster. There’s no clear evidence of this, but if you have the time, it may be worth a shot. When you're done shopping around and ready to book, simply clear your browser cookies and empty your caches or go into Incognito or Private Mode. (In Chrome, go to File > New Incognito Window. In Safari, go to File > New Private Window.)

USE LOCAL CURRENCY

If you are booking with an airline from another country, pay in that country’s currency to avoid currency conversion costs. You can usually select your currency in the top right hand side of the screen. Actually you should always practice this when traveling, be it a hotel, restaurant, or store. If you are asked for your choice of currency select the local currency for the best conversion rate.

TRY A VPN

This hack has proven to work time after time, but with varying degrees of saving. By using a VPN (Virtual Private Network), you can change your point of purchase to a new location and get offered a different price. While you may save a couple of hundred dollars, you also may get charged more. If you use a VPN to book a flight make sure that it is getting you the better deal. This hack is usually most effective while booking domestic flights in another country. For example, if you are planning a trip through Spain and you decide you want to fly from northern to southern Spain, using a VPN in Spain, or at least in Europe, could cost less than booking from the U.S.

So how do people get VPNs? Some companies use a VPN for connecting employees and saving private data. If you don’t have a VPN through your work there are free and paid versions of the software. Watch out for fake services. Do your research before selecting VPN software. Check reputable tech review sites like PCMag for up-to-date reviews and comparisons.

Have you tried any of these hacks to find cheap flights? What has been your results?