Budget Flights: Do They Exist?

For this inquiry post, I am investigating the different resources available to find the best deals on flights. I am going to plan a trip to Mexico as an example for searching for budget-friendly options. My overall budget is $1300 and I need to figure out how I can maximize my experience and adventures while working with this amount of money.

My starting spot was to consult some fellow travel blogs to see where others have found budget-friendly flights and learn any tips and tricks from them. Travel blogs are often written by people who live nomadic lifestyles and travel all over, having the most experience in their field. For this part of my inquiry, I turned to Thrifty Nomads, who specialize in travelling without breaking the bank and have been doing it for over 8 years. In their blog post they outline a bunch of helpful links.

I decided to follow their steps to success, starting by opening an incognito browser. If you do not know how to do this on your own device here is a quick YouTube video to help you out.

Looking on certain websites can allow you to compare and contrast flights from different airlines. Skyscanner is a popular one, as well as Google Flights. Google Flights in my preferred website, as I find the interface easier to navigate

In my initial search of flights from YYJ to PVR, results were appearing around the $1100 price range. As my overall budget is $1300, this would not do. The flights all included a layover in Vancouver and Calgary. I decided to take it one step further, and change my parameters to searching for flights out of Vancouver. This led to some flights being around $900 but still having multiple awkward stops (who wants a 13 hour layover in Edmonton?). I decided to wait a few days, as many people told me that flights were more expensive on the weekend and often dropped in price on Tuesday and Wednesday.

On Tuesday, I got my computer back out and continued the hunt for flights. It appeared as though the weekend was more expensive, as I was able to find flights for cheaper out of Vancouver. Although redeye flights, it meant I would be able to leave Victoria later in the day to catch the ferry and did not have to spend time on an awkward layover somewhere else. The layover for the flight was Mexico City, which is an interesting airport and has some great food options in it. The flight costed $758 each, which was aligned with the budget I had set out (as flights are the most expensive part of the trip in my experience).