Jack Sheldon, self-proclaimed flight-hacker, shared his tips to the masses last night via Reddit AMA (ask me anything). Jack says that 'Over the last 3 years, I've been able to visit over 40 countries (currently at 42) by finding mistake fares and wildly cheap deals and on international, mostly round-trip long-haul flights.' How Jack? HOW?
He apparently finds mistakes made by flight companies via google’s ‘back end matrix’ (say what?). Obviously this seems very techy and hard for us normal folk, so he offered to help people look for flights for the majority of last night. The thread went from 3000 to over 30,000 and he was inundated with so many requests he had to ask everyone to stop sending them in so he could spend the next FEW DAYS responding.
He’s mentioned finding flights from Edinburgh to Canary Islands for £31!! That is equivalent to buying a pair of shoes or something equally not as fun as a holiday. Even more impressively going from London to Tokyo for £272, I paid triple that this year and now I feel like an idiot. Show us your ways Jack!
His random act of kindness doesn’t stop there; he has set up an email newsletter where you can sign up to receive cheap flight alerts from him. The comment section is flooded from other savvy savers giving us tips too, we scrolled through so you don’t have to:
1. Use websites like Momondo, Skyscanner and Google flights
2. Be Flexible
3. Search vague continent flights rather than specific destinations
4. Use this search engine(apparently the back end of google)
5. Clear your cookies each time you search as prices will edge up
6. If you’re getting a flight with connections, look at booking each journey separately
7. Use the sky scanner email alert system
8. 6-12 weeks before is the ‘sweet spot’ for booking flights
9. For peak times, 11-12 months before is best
Wow. Thank you Jack and thank you Reddit, you’re always so kind to us. Now if you don’t mind I’m gonna wrap this up here so I can plan my Gap-yah-esque world trip.
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.