Okay, let’s talk about finding flights when you’re not locked into specific dates. This used to drive me nuts, honestly. I knew prices changed all the time, and if I could shift my trip by a few days, maybe even a week or two, I could probably save some cash or get a better route. But checking manually? Forget it. That’s a one-way ticket to frustration.
My Old Way Was Terrible
So, picture this: I’d have a destination in mind, say, London. And I knew I wanted to go sometime in the spring, maybe April or May. My first instinct, years ago, was just opening a bunch of airline websites. British Airways, Virgin Atlantic, maybe a budget one. Then I’d plug in dates. Fly April 10th, return April 17th. Check price. Okay. Try April 12th to April 19th. Check price. Then maybe try May 5th to May 12th. It was slow. Really slow. And I always felt like I was missing something, some magic date combination just out of reach.
Then I moved on to the big comparison sites. You know the ones. They were better, sure. But I was still mostly plugging in specific dates. Some had +/- 3 days options, which helped a bit, but it wasn’t the wide-open flexibility I was really looking for.
Figuring Out the Flexible Date Tools
I figured there had to be a better way. Someone must have built a tool for people like me, people who care more about the when in a general sense, rather than a specific Tuesday. So, I started poking around more deliberately on those big flight search engines.
One of the first things I really got into was Google Flights. Not just the main search, but their ‘Explore’ feature. This was a bit of a game-changer for me.
- I’d go to Google Flights.
- Put in my departure city, let’s say New York.
- Instead of putting in a specific destination, sometimes I’d leave it blank or click on the map.
- Crucially, I’d click the date box. Instead of picking exact dates, I started using the ‘Flexible dates’ option.
- I could choose things like ‘Weekend’, ‘1 week’, or ‘2 weeks’ and then select a timeframe like ‘in the next 6 months’ or a specific month like ‘May’.
Suddenly, I could see a map light up with prices to all sorts of places for a one-week trip in May. Or, if I did put in a destination like London, I could use the calendar view or the price graph. The calendar literally showed prices for every day, often color-coded. Green for cheap, red for expensive. Super easy to spot the cheaper date ranges visually. I spent a lot of time just playing with this, seeing where I could go cheaply if I was flexible.
Trying Other Options Too
Google Flights became my go-to, but I didn’t stop there. I also spent a good amount of time using Skyscanner. They had a similar approach that I found useful.
- Again, put in departure and arrival cities.
- When I clicked the date field, instead of specific dates, I could choose ‘Whole month’.
- Even better, I could select ‘Cheapest month’.
This was great if I really didn’t care when I went, as long as it was cheap. Selecting ‘Whole month’ would bring up a calendar view showing prices for each day, or sometimes just a bar chart if they didn’t have prices for every single day yet. It worked well. Sometimes it felt like it found slightly different options than Google Flights, so I often ended up checking both.
I also tried checking some specific airline websites again, seeing if they had improved their own flexible date tools. Some have low-fare calendars, which are basically the same idea – showing you prices across a month. They can be good if you’re loyal to one airline, but often I found them clunkier than the big search engines. More limited in scope, you know? Only their flights.
What Worked Best For Me
So, after all that clicking around and experimenting, what do I use now? Mostly, I start with Google Flights Explore if I’m just daydreaming or have a very broad timeframe. The map view combined with flexible date ranges like ‘a week in June’ is brilliant for discovery.
If I have a specific destination and a rough month in mind, I use the regular Google Flights search but immediately open up the calendar view or the price graph. Being able to see the price differences day-by-day across two months is usually enough to find the sweet spot.
I still check Skyscanner too, especially using the ‘Whole month’ feature. Sometimes it just presents the information in a slightly different way that clicks, or maybe catches a budget airline combo that Google missed. It’s good to have a second opinion.
It took a bit of trial and error, messing around with the different tools. But now, finding flights with flexible dates isn’t a headache. It’s actually kind of interesting to see how the prices shift. Using these calendar views and flexible date options on Google Flights and Skyscanner saves me time, and definitely saves me money compared to just guessing dates randomly. It just involved digging into the features they already had, features I hadn’t properly used before.
