Thailand is a fantastic tourist destination, especially for those who enjoy tropical beaches and countries with extensive historical and cultural backgrounds. Still, traveling isn’t cheap, and you can spend thousands of dollars if you want to have the vacation of your dreams.
Therefore, we created this quick guide on how to find cheap flights to Thailand to help you save a bit of money so you can enjoy its beautiful urban areas and iconic temples. Keep reading to learn more about this.
10 Tips on How to Fly to Thailand for Less Money
You can spend a considerable portion of your travel budget on your airfare expenses, especially if you’re looking for last-minute tickets or traveling to a costly location. This can make many people choose not to travel, as they can’t afford to go to their dream destination.
There are simple ways of finding cheaper flights, some of which are the following. Just read these tips and use them next time you’re planning to travel somewhere.
1. Book Early for Cheap Flights
In most cases, the price of plane tickets will skyrocket in the last few weeks before the flight date. Therefore, a piece of good advice is to book your flight as soon as possible to ensure you get the lowest price. Usually, the best moment to book your flight is 30 days before your departure.
You can also use price predictor algorithms to check when prices are likely to increase, but remember these predictions aren’t always 100% accurate.
If you book early, you can also make sure to get the seat you want without having to pay extra for a “premium” seat. This will prevent you from getting a bad seat that will make the whole flight uncomfortable for you.
2. Set Price Alerts
Sometimes you won’t be ready to book a flight as early as you’d like, but if you wait too long, you’ll probably end up paying much more than you intended. In those cases, you can set a price alert that will send you a notification when prices increase or decrease. This will help you save a lot of money, especially if you buy several tickets. Two websites that offer price alerts right to your email are Kiwi and Skyscanner. Download their apps to you mobile to get push notification on price drops in real time.
Some algorithms can even show you a graph of the fluctuation of the prices.
3. Be Flexible
If you’re not too rigid in your travel options, you can save some money by looking for flexible plans, such as traveling mid-week or during a holiday. Fewer people tend to travel these days, which means you will get a lower ticket price.
Sometimes changing the date is not an option, but flying to a different airport might be. Therefore, if possible, you should fly to the nearest and cheapest airport, as this can save you considerable money.
4. Book a Connecting Flight
This option is related to the previous one, but few people understand how it works. In most cases, booking a connecting flight can be much cheaper than a non-stop flight to your final destination.
You can even search for these flights in your search engines and compare prices. Therefore, if you’re not in a hurry and don’t mind stopping by another country or city, this option may be the one for you.
5. Consider Discount Airlines
Major airlines will get you anywhere you want, but they will also be the most expensive ones. If you want to save money, you should consider discount airlines with fewer flights. All you have to do is find one with flights towards your destination.
6. Use More Than One Travel Portal
Using several third-party booking portals instead of buying directly from the carrier is also a good idea, as sometimes you can find much better deals in these travel portals. You can choose from thousands of travel portals, and we will analyze two of our favorite ones in this article – Kiwi and Skyscanner
They are fantastic research tools that help people like you find amazing deals and cheap routes.
7. Browse Airline Specials
If you have no option but to book a last-minute flight, you can also find great deals from the carrier. However, please don’t rely on this option, as it depends on whether the carrier wants to resell their remaining seats or not. Still, it is good to keep it in mind if you have to go somewhere as fast as possible.
8. Use an Airline Credit Card to Avoid Baggage Fees
You can check your baggage fees for free if you have an airline rewards card. Some even let you check up to nine bags, but you must book the flight directly with the carrier and pay with your airline credit card.
9. Use Award Miles
Many people prefer spending miles over money, especially if they’re buying expensive flights. All you have to do is choose an airline that accepts a miles credit card and redeem your miles through the credit card’s travel portal.
10. Use Your Credit Card Travel Credits
Most credit cards offer travel benefits, such as paying for part of your baggage fees and earning points per airfare purchase, which you can later exchange for award flights.
Some even offer a Global Entry fee reimbursement that will help you skip long lines when returning to the U.S.
Skyscanner VS. Kiwi
Now that you know several tips on how to get cheaper flights, you know that many of them include using metasearch engines. Therefore, we will analyze and compare two of our favorite ones, Skyscanner and Kiwi.com. Please keep reading if you want to learn which one is better for you.
Skyscanner
Skyscanner is a travel search engine owned by Ctrip, which is the largest Chinese travel company. It is used to look at flights and book cheap travel plans, including hotels and in-site transportation. You can use its site no matter where you’re from, as it is available in more than 30 languages and features a handy news section for you to be up-to-date with all flight-related news.
It is also one of the most popular travel booking engines and has won several awards since it was launched in 2001. Skyscanner was created by three IT professionals who felt frustrated by the difficulty of booking cheap flights, so they decided to come up with a solution.
Although it was created in 2001, it was released in 2002, and its first office was opened in 2004. Skyscanner kept expanding over the years and even acquired other travel sites until it became the giant website it is today and was bought by Ctrip.
Many hotels and flight companies partner with Skyscanner, as it is a great way of increasing their brand exposure and conversions. However, many users have noticed bugs on the platform and inaccurate prices, which may cause them to lose money if they’re not careful enough.
Kiwi
On the other hand, Kiwi is a specialized travel agency that combines flights and other means of transportation into one website to get the best possible rates to get where you need to go. It has an extensive database of all the travel schedules you need to get to your destination as fast and cheaply as possible.
You can choose to create a detailed itinerary to save some money or let the platform do its magic and pair several means of transportation together to drastically lower your overall travel cost.
Therefore, if you find yourself having to spend too much on your travel expenses, you should try out Kiwi.com before committing to another platform. It doesn’t matter if you need a one-way international flight or a last-minute booking; Kiwi will find the best option for you and help you save as much money as possible.
Even if you believe that your trip is simple and cheap enough, there is no harm in checking out whether Kiwi can help you find a better deal for it. Sometimes you can save a couple of hundred dollars by driving to a different airport or finding a low-cost carrier to connect your flight to another airline.
If you still don’t know how Kiwi works, you can check out the following guide.
- Imagine you want to travel from New York to Italy in November 2022, and you check on Google Flights for the cheapest trip.
- Then, you can check on Kiwi.com and create a travel hack itinerary that can cost you half the initial price. The difference is that you would have to take several means of transportation and use a different airline.
Although it may seem simple, it can save you a lot of money that you can enjoy differently during your trip. Kiwi is also helpful for one-way travels, as they’re usually costly. This platform can help you find a low-cost airline that will charge you much less for your trip.
You can use this platform if you booked a one-way trip to a different country but can’t find an available flight to go back home. Something like this could cost you over $1000, but on Kiwi, you can get it for half that price.
Travel Insurance & Visa to Thailand
Thailand’s doors have been recently reopened to tourists, and they won’t need to meet the previous requirements to enter the country. travel insurance in no longer mandatory, but it’s always smart to have a COVID-19 insurance plan these days.
You can get more information in our Travel Insurance Guide.
In most cases, you must also get a Visa, which will ensure the legality and safety of the visitor during their stay in the country.
Read more about Visa to Thailand.
Flights Inside Thailand
Traveling inside Thailand is a fantastic adventure, but many people assume that taking the bus or train will always be cheaper than booking a flight. However, you would be surprised to find out that this isn’t always the case and sometimes, when you’re traveling long distances, your best option will be to book a flight, as they tend to be cheaper and more comfortable.
Some of the most common long-distance routes are Bangkok-Chiang Mai and Bangkok-Phuket, and they tend to be pretty costly if you choose to travel by train or bus. Therefore, the best option is to find a low-cost airline with similar or lower rates.
You can also check for promotional fares that are sometimes available on travel websites to make flying much cheaper than taking the bus.
Some of the low-cost airlines in Thailand you should check out when buying your tickets are the following.
- Bangkok Airways. This airline only offers national services.
- Air Asia. This airline is pretty well established and offers international as well as national services.
- Lion Air. This is a relatively new airline but offers fantastic low-cost deals.
- Nok Air. This airline offers a wide variety of services in the country, including some international flights.
- Orient Thai. This is a small domestic airline with low costs.
- Thai Airways. This is Thailand’s main airline, and it features flights to a wide variety of destinations. However, it is the most expensive of the bunch.
- Thai Smile Airways. This is the low-cost version of Thai Airways, which makes it a pretty solid option, but it doesn’t feature as many flights and destinations.
Each of them features different routes, so you must check which airport is the best for you depending on which airline you choose, especially if you’re not from Thailand, as you can quickly get confused.
Keep in mind that some of these airlines are more expensive than others. Some people believe that Thai Airways and Bangkok Airways are the most expensive ones, but this will depend on your specific flight. Therefore, checking out their website while examining your options is always good.
Bottom Line
Finding cheap flights to Thailand doesn’t have to be complicated, and after reading this guide, you know what to do to find the best deals for you.
Remember to check out Kiwi.com before committing to a price, as it is sure to find you the best possible deals and destinations through its smart travel algorithm.
If this article was helpful to you, please check out the rest of our Travel Tips for similar content about travel.
