How to Find the Cheapest Dates to Fly

The fastest way to save on a flight is to be flexible about the date. A fare calendar shows the lowest recent price for each day, so you can see the cheap days at a glance instead of searching one date at a time.

Reading the calendar

Every route page on FarePockets, like New York to Los Angeles, has a "Cheapest days to fly" section covering the next three months:

• Cheapest dates found lists the five lowest fares across all three months. Start here.
• The cheapest day in each month is highlighted, and lower-than-usual fares are tinted, so cheap stretches stand out.
• A price on a day is the lowest one-way fare found in recent searches for that departure date.
• A day without a price just means nobody searched it recently. It can still be cheap.

Turning a cheap date into a booking

1. Pick a highlighted day, or any day near one. Cheap fares often cluster in the same week.
2. Click the day. It opens live results for that exact date on our partner Aviasales, where you compare airlines and booking sites.
3. Check the final price. Calendar prices come from recent searches and can change. Confirm the total, including bags and seat fees, before you pay.

Tips that make the biggest difference

• Fly midweek when you can. In our US data, Tuesday departures ran about 4% below a route's typical fare, and Sundays 42% above. See the cheapest day of the week to fly.
• Price each direction on its own. The calendar shows one-way fares, so look up your return separately. Two one-way tickets are sometimes cheaper than a round trip.
• Search the whole city, not one airport. Including nearby airports can turn up cheaper flights. Here is how metro airport codes work.
• Quieter routes have fewer prices. On smaller routes the calendar may only show a handful of days. Click any day you are interested in to see live fares.