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In this article we will share our BEST flight booking hacks for 2026. Airlines are notoriously scammy. If their sky-high prices aren’t enough, the airline booking websites are designed to get as much money from you as possible. Whether it’s sneaky charges, tracking cookies or charging more for your location or booking time. They really do have all the tricks up their sleeves.
Why are we writing this? Primarily, to save you money. If you know their tricks you can get around them. But to be honest – this is also a bit of a rant. We have tried to include some cheap flight booking hacks to help you.
We really do hope this guide helps save you money and avoid the airline scams.
TOP TIP – In 2026 it is very hard to find cheap last minute flights. The only way to find low budget flights is to look at budget airlines nice and early. If you’re in Europe consider Airlines like Easy Jet (they are low cost but relatively good service). In Asia Check out Scoot, Cebu and Air Asia.
A few disclaimers
We are not just talking about airlines here. The third party websites are often worse than the airlines. Skyscanner is a great tool for booking flights and comparing prices. But sadly some of Skyscanner third party partners are very dishonest and rippy.
Also, we’re also totally aware that not every website is bad. Perhaps some airlines don’t use these tricks. This article isn’t meant to generalize to an entire sector. We are just sharing some very common techniques that airlines and booking websites use to get as much money from you as possible.
Why do we call these airlines and websites “scammy”? Surely every business is set up to maximize profits? We use the term “scam” because we are talking about manipulative and dishonest business practices. As a thought experiment imagine a real human used these tricks to charge you more in a shop. How would you feel? Would you call it scammy?
Our flight booking hacks should help minimize the impact of airline scams and help you save money on flights.
1 Charge more based on your location
Airline booking websites track your location and set prices accordingly. In general you will pay more if you book in a country with a higher GDP per capita. Europe and the USA are expensive countries to book tickets. How do you get around this? Flight booking hack: We recommend using a good VPN to search for flights and book tickets. A VPN is a tool that enables you to search and book from a different location. Even if you don’t call this a scam – it does feel rough being charged more just because of your location.
2 Increase prices based on your interest
Airline websites use cookies to track your browsing history. If you have spent a lot of time searching for a specific flight, the websites will register your interest and may increase the prices. The more you want the flights, the more you will be willing to pay. So how do you get around this? The best way to avoid the cookies is to search for flights using an incognito browser. This is pretty straightforward. For example if you’re using Chrome just click “open new incognito window”. You will see an icon of a creepy guy, and that’s it. You’re ready to browse discreetly. This is one of the easiest flight booking hacks and it could save you loads on your flights.
3 Try and trick you with the extras
If you’re trying to book flights – have a strong coffee first. You will need your wits about you to navigate the websites. Almost every airline the world over has a complicated multi-step process with all sorts of extras to pay more for. Whether it is seat booking fees, in-flight meals, extra leg room, insurance, baggage protection, a back massager on your seat, a roll of dental floss. They will relentlessly try to sell anything. It feels like the digital equivalent of a rippy tourist market. And watch out. Sometimes you need to opt out of the extras. Sometimes you need to not opt in. Other times you need to not not opt out. It is like trying to navigate a digital assault course designed to extract every penny from you. So take your time, check everything carefully and watch out for the tick boxes.
4 Sneak the price up as you book
Another way airlines scam you out of money is just sneaking the price up as you book. Even if you are super clever and avoid all the extras and add ons, they may just increase the price randomly hoping you will not notice. This is one of the more dishonest scams that we have come across. Most websites allow you to view the total price as you go through the booking so watch this carefully. If they try sneaking the price up there may not be much you can do about this. If you start the booking again the same thing will probably happen. So you just need to watch it carefully and decide if you are still happy with the increased prices. Shame you can’t given them a slap and tell them where to go!
5 Hike prices at peak times
This is one of the most frustrating scams for families. And yeah, I think scam is a good word for this. Prices absolutely soar during school holidays. You may think – it’s just supply and demand. Perhaps you’re right. But the percentage increases are genuinely pretty sad. There isn’t much you can do to avoid this. If you do need to book flights during a school holiday you will need to be more creative and flexible to snatch up a deal. For example, avoid flying on the first weekend of a school holiday. Wait for the following week days. Be creative with your flight routes and open minded to different airports. Try to get your flights booked as early as possible and look for budget airlines.
Flight booking hacks: Try to book your flights during the day time on weekdays. Flight prices drop slightly during these lulls. This may mean getting those flights booked during a word day – but it’s worth saving what you can.
6 Confuse you with different currencies
Another trick airlines use to squeeze those pennies out of you is to switch currency part way through the booking process. Watch out for the prices going up when the currency changes. For example, you may select a flight listed in GBP. Click through to the booking page and the same flight is now listed in Euros or USD. If the currency switches we recommend getting it back into the currency of your bank. Otherwise you may be given a sucky exchange rate AND your bank may also charge you for a transaction in a different currency.
7 Stupidly expensive check in baggage
Baggage fees don’t sound like a scam. We all know that budget airlines charge for check in baggage. But be aware, they will lure you in with deceptively low ticket prices and then charge frightening amounts for check in baggage. For example, budget carriers in Europe can charge as much as £50 – £100 for 23kg check in luggage. This surely counts as a scam – how does it cost more to check in a 23kg bag than an adult flight ticket? The best way around this is to travel light. As a full time travel fam we have been surprised about how little you really need when you’re traveling. So if possible try to travel with your carry on only and plan to do a load or two of laundry on your trip.
8 Charge “admin fees”
When you finally find a flight that meets your needs and for a price you are happy with it can feel awesome. Brace yourself, you still need to get through the extensive booking process. Navigate pages of extras and details. And finally you’re ready to pay for your flights. At this point you may be confronted with extra booking fees. Sometimes they call it an “admin fee” (surely this should just be wrapped up in the first price you are quoted). Other times it is a card booking fee. This final scam may cost £5 – £10. They are relying on you just sighing and giving in because it’s small relative to the cost of flights. But to be honest it sucks to be held ransom for something you have invested so much time and effort in finding. And they know this. There aren’t really any ways to avoid this – we recommend trying a few websites to book the same tickets and see what comes out cheaper in the end with all fees and bags included. This is more time consuming but it is the best way to get the cheapest flights.
9 Take a payment and then increase the prices
We mentioned the scammy third party websites. They often sell tickets that they cannot deliver. So you go through the entire booking process and pay for the flights. A day or two later you may receive an email telling you that you don’t have the tickets (or worse, you may just notice that no ticket email comes through). This leaves you with less time to find tickets that have probably increased in price. And then you will then need to chase them up for the refund that they owe you. And of course, being scammy they will make this as difficult as possible and do anything they can to hold your money back. Trip.com recently owed us a refund for booking they could not deliver. Not only did they try to hold back their expensive card booking fee (over £5), they also sneakily tried to switch from GBP to USD but kept the amount the same. Since USD has a lower value than GBP this would have cost us around £60 if we hadn’t spotted their “mistake”. The best flight booking hack is to always aim to book directly with the airline. If the difference in price is close we recommend booking directly with airlines where possible to avoid the unethical business practices of these scammy websites.
10 Separate groups and families
This may be one of the most frustrating things we have seen any airline do. And fortunately this one is not too common. Some budget carriers like Ryanair deliberately separate groups and families to extort them into paying their extra seat selection fees. Why not just include these fees in the prices if they aren’t really optional? This has even been known to happen with families traveling with young children. Not only is this scammy – this is probably one of the most concerning unethical business practices we have come across. There is surely a duty of care to ensure that young children are accompanied by a supervising adult on the flight. There isn’t much you can do about this. If you skip the fees you do run the risk of upsetting people if you ask to move around. So this is just a personal decision. There are no clever flight booking hacks here. It’s simple. Just avoid this is to avoid carriers like Ryanair. They may be cheap – but they are definitely scammy. We have found Easyjet to be a much better family friendly budget airline.
Overall Skyscanner is one of the best tools
It is becoming increasingly challenging to book cheap flights. Many of the older tricks like looking for last minute deals are becoming increasingly difficult. Hopefully our flight booking hacks will help you avoid these manipulative tricks that airlines use to scam you out of money.
We do recommend using Skyscanner to book flights if you are savvy and use our flight booking hacks
You may also be interested in our guide on traveling Thailand for less the £20 per day all in.
