✈️ Flight Search Strategies

What it's great for (3 things):

1. Price baseline — calendar view, date grid, and price history graph tell you instantly if $419 to Japan is good or bad
2. Explore/Map view — unbeatable for "Where can I go cheaply from here?" (though Kiwi can beat it)
3. Comparison — flight durations, layover options, routing quality — all laid out clearly

The problem: Built to answer "What is the best conventional flight?" — optimised for airline-approved fares, protected connections, and clean itineraries. It will NOT show you hidden-city fares, multi-continent scans, or points availability.

Kiwi lets you search entire continents as origin/destination — something Google Flights cannot do.

1. Continent-level search — set "North America" → "Asia" and search thousands of routes at once
2. Discover airports you'd never type — e.g. Halifax → Lisbon for $175 on WestJet. You'd never search Halifax, but the deal exists
3. Maximum flexibility — add multiple continents, set "any time" for dates, and let the algorithm find the cheapest combination

Always book direct with the airline after finding the route — Kiwi found a route for $X, booking direct was only $3 more, but gives you airline-level protection for changes/cancellations.

🔗 kiwi.com

Skiplagged shows you flights where your layover IS your destination — a massive pricing loophole Google Flights will never display.

1. Hidden city ticketing — book A → B → C, get off at B. The ticket A→C is cheaper than A→B because of how airlines price connecting flights
2. $280 vs $169 — NYC → Miami was $280 on Google Flights. Skiplagged found the same flight as NYC → Jacksonville (via Miami) for $169. Book direct with American Airlines = $169.
3. 100% on Google Flights — Google Flights WILL show you the A→C flight, but it won't tell you that B is your actual destination and you can skip the final leg

🔗 skiplagged.com

When cash prices seem insane, points and miles are often the best answer. But the search process is way more complicated — you have points across multiple banks (Chase, Amex, Citi) and dozens of airline programs.

1. Cross-program search — search award availability across multiple airline programs in one place instead of bouncing between dozens of websites
2. LifeMiles business class example — Google Flights showed NYC → London business class for $8,000+. Points search found it for 45,000 points. You could buy the miles and still pay ~90% less
3. Real redemptions mentioned: 25k Virgin Atlantic points for Air France business class to Brazil ($2,000+ cash); 30k AA miles for Europe → South Africa on Qatar Airways during peak Christmas
4. Hotel points too — same tool searches hotel award availability across programs (Google doesn't do this at all)

ITA Matrix is the advanced version of Google Flights — way more control over how you search.

1. Force specific routing rules — require or exclude certain airports, airlines, or connection cities
2. Dig into fare construction — understand exactly how a price is built from component fares
3. Complex itineraries — build open-jaw routes, multi-city connections, and creative routings Google Flights won't support
4. Rabbit hole use case: "Is there a way I can build an open-jaw itinerary and connect with a cheap one-way flight in the middle?"

Research tool only — you can't book on ITA Matrix. Find the fare, then book direct with the airline.

🔗 matrix.itasoftware.com

Google Flights alerts work when you know where & when. Deal alert services work when you don't.

1. Set preferences — departure airports, regions of interest, deal types, travel windows
2. Deals come to you — instead of hours searching, get notified when there's a match
3. Points deals included — not just cash fares, but award availability alerts too

Google Flights price alerts = reactive (track a known route). Deal services = proactive (discover routes you didn't know existed).

The order matters — each tool handles what the previous one couldn't: