If you’re like me, you like to travel. It allows you to explore new places, visit friends and family, and enjoy a change of scenery from your everyday life.

As exciting as traveling is, the downside is that it’s really dang expensive. Airfare is often the biggest cost involved, especially when you travel with a partner or family and have to pay for multiple tickets.

Over the years, I’ve traveled quite a bit, and I’ve learned a few things about flying, price fluctuations, and how to get the best deals on airfare. I’m going to share some tips with you about how you can save money on your future flights.

There are two ways to purchase a flight from an airline: you can pay with regular money, or you can use reward “miles” or “points.” So first I’ll discuss the best ways you can earn points or miles for future flights. Then I’ll list my tips for scoring the best prices on flights without using any reward points.

How to Earn More Airline Miles

Get a Travel Credit Card

By far the fastest and easiest way to get a bunch of airline miles is to sign up for a new credit card. Many credit cards have promotions that offer 40,000 or 60,000 points if you sign up and spend a certain amount in the first few months. This is usually enough for two round-trip flights in the US - pretty good deal!

On top of the bonus miles, the travel cards usually come with some other perks - anything from a free checked bag to free TSA precheck to special deals on hotels and rental cars. And they give you “miles” for every purchase you make, so you are constantly earning points toward your next free flight.

The downside is that a lot of the cards require you to spend a lot of money to receive the promotion miles. It depends on the card, but often you have to spend $3,000 or more in the first 3 months of having the card. So if you don’t typically spend that much, you may want to carefully time when you open the card.

Perhaps you’re going on an expensive trip, or you have some business purchases that you can reimbursed for - that would be the time to open the card so you can hit the $3,000 and get the signup bonus. There are some cards that only require $1,000 in spending, though their mileage bonuses are typically smaller.

The other downside is that a lot of them have an annual fee. But that depends on the card, and if they do have a fee it’s usually waived for the first year. Click here to view my list of the best credit cards for air travel.

Overall, getting a credit card is definitely the best way to accumulate airline miles. It was something I did as soon as I knew I wanted to travel more. There’s really no faster way to earn miles than with one of those signup bonuses.

Use a Shopping Portal

Pretty much every major US carrier has an online shopping portal that you can use to accumulate some miles. A shopping portal earns you bonus points by linking to hundreds of online retailers.

Basically, it works like this. Instead of starting at Target.com, you start at aadvantageeshopping.com, for example. Then you browse and click on a product, offer, or store. You are redirected to the store’s website to complete the checkout process. If you complete the purchase, you will get credit in the form of airline miles or points.

How much you can earn depends on the airline, the store, and any promotions they have. But somewhere between 1 and 10 miles per dollar spent is typical. This is cool because it counts in addition to any credit card rewards you may get. It may not seem like a lot at first, but if you are a frequent online shopper, it can really add up.

Here are the portals for the major US Airlines:

• Alaska Airlines: Mileage Plan Shopping
• American Airlines: AAdvantage eShopping
• Delta Airlines: SkyMiles Shopping
• JetBlue: TrueBlue Shopping
• Southwest: Rapid Rewards Shopping
• United: MileagePlus Shopping

Earn Miles on Hotels and Rental Cars

Most airlines have partnerships with hotels and rental cars which allow you to earn points by booking your hotel or car through the airline’s website. Just like with the shopping portal, you use the airline’s webpage instead of going directly to the hotel or rental car site. You can typically get a few hundred or thousand miles by doing this, so it can definitely make an impact for you.

You can find links to each airline’s hotel and rental car booking capabilities directly from the home page of its website. Sometimes you’ll find deals that offer a pretty solid bonus, so it’s definitely worth shopping around to see what you can find.

How to Find the Lowest Fare

Maybe you don’t want to use miles. Or if you have miles, you don’t want to waste them if you can find a good deal on the regular fare. After all, it’s best to save your miles for a flight that you need but normally is really expensive.

So in most instances, you’ll probably pay for your flight with regular money, not with miles. From my experience, I have a few tips to help you secure the best price on your flight.

Don’t Book Too Early

Yes, you read that right. Don’t book your flight too early.

You probably know that booking your tickets in advance is crucial in getting the best price on your airfare. And that is true. If you book your flight just four days out, you will likely pay a price much, much higher than if you book four weeks from departure.

But that doesn’t mean you should book your flight as far out as possible. Some airlines will let you book your fights as far as a year out. Don’t do that, as you will probably pay a higher price than if you only book two months out. I don’t suggest you even think about booking your flight until at least 5 months out, and that’s on the high end. Unless you find an extremely good deal, there’s really no reason to book your flight more than 3 months from your departure date.

Think about it from a demand perspective. If you book a flight two days out, you need that flight, so you’re going to be willing to pay more for it. That’s why airlines can charge exorbitant prices. Somewhat similarly, if you book one year in advance, you are certain you’ll be traveling on those dates.

Maybe it’s a wedding, or it’s a vacation that you’ve been planning for years. Whatever it is, most people booking far in advance are confident they’ll be traveling on just those dates, so they are less flexible. Maybe they are just looking to get the booking over with, so they aren’t as price-sensitive. Those who book just one month from departure will compare options more carefully, and the cost of the flight could be a big factor in whether they even decide to take the trip.

It’s not nearly as extreme as booking just two days away, but the airline can and will charge a higher price than it has to when you try to book more than a few months in advance. As a general guideline I suggest booking your flight between three weeks and three months before your departure date.

Be Flexible with Your Travel Dates

If you can, it helps to be flexible with your travel dates. Try to avoid traveling on Sundays if you can. It is the busiest and most expensive day of the week to travel. Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Saturdays are the cheapest days to fly. Of course, this is on average and your specific prices will vary. Compare a few different departure and return dates to see how the prices differ.

If you’re planning a vacation and aren’t picky about which month to go, then consider choosing a time where it’s cheaper to fly. Some of the best times of the year to travel are in early-to-mid November and early-to-mid December. Not many people want to travel just two weeks before a major holiday, so you can find some pretty low airfare.

January is the cheapest month on average to fly. This makes sense because it’s right after all the holiday travel. I’ve found some really good flight deals in January and it still can be a good month to take a vacation. Especially if you live in the north and want to escape the cold weather.

Use a Service to Alert You of Flight Deals

You want to get the best possible price you can on your flight. There’s no worse feeling than knowing you’ve overpaid for something. But constantly checking the flight prices can get exhausting, and remembering to pull up Google flights or Skyscanner every day is a pain.

On both Google Flights and Skyscanner, you can set up alerts to inform you whenever the price of the flight you are looking for has dropped to a certain level. Setting a notification on one of both of these platforms can help you snag the best deal without having to actively check.

Of course, if you’re more or less just looking around and don’t have specific dates in mind, then you’re better off just periodically checking the sites yourself.

You can also try a service called Scott’s Cheap Flights. They have a team of people who search for the low fares for you - all you do is enter a departure airport. This is great if you’re thinking about taking a vacation, but are flexible on when and where you want to go. They’ll find you all kinds of deals, and they help you capitalize on “mistake” fares, which happen when the airline posts a crazy low price for a flight by accident.

In full disclosure, I haven’t used Scott’s Cheap Flights, but I’ve heard good things about it from people who have. It may be worth checking out if you’re looking for a great deal on a vacation.

Take Advantage of Southwest’s Change Policy

I’m not here to tell you that Southwest will always have the lowest price, because they don’t. So I don’t always fly with them, but if I have the choice between Southwest and any other airline, I always choose Southwest if the price is the same. There are many reasons I like Southwest, but one of them is their relatively customer-friendly change policy.

Unlike every other US airline, Southwest does not have any change fees. You can change your flight pretty much whenever you want, and it’s easy to do. If the fare of your new flight is more than your old flight, then you will pay the difference. If the fare of your new flight is less than your old flight, then you will receive the difference as a travel credit that you can apply to a future flight within one year.

And that paves the way for a neat travel hack that you can do with Southwest.

Let’s say you bought your ticket for $300. A week after you bought your ticket, you notice that the price of your flight has dropped to $220. The feeling of overpaying for a flight sucks, but no need to get down. On the Southwest app or website, you can “change” your flight to the exact same flight you already have, snag that $220 price, and receive $80 in flight credit. Now as long as you fly Southwest again within the next year, it’s just like receiving that $80 as a refund.

Pretty cool, right? I’ve done this a handful of times with Southwest, and I’ve saved hundreds doing so. I even got lucky once and found the price of my flight went down $100 just the day before the flight!

Every other US airline has a pretty hefty change fee that would wipe away any savings from a lower fare. Southwest doesn’t, and it can lead to some pretty nice savings. So even if you don’t get the best deal the first time you book, you don’t have to worry, because you can still take advantage if the price ever lowers.

Conclusion

I’ve discussed what I believe are the best ways to save on your airfare. If you want to earn miles, the fastest way to do that is to get a travel credit card. You can also take advantage of an airline’s shopping portal, as well as hotel and rental car booking capabilities. If you’re going to pay for your flight with regular money, then you should look to book at the right time, be flexible with your travel dates, consider using price notification services, and take advantage of flexible change policies.

Air travel is expensive, but with these methods you can make it cost at least a little bit less.