Here’s a very important secret; if you can find cheap flights to Indonesia, you’ll have enough money left over to basically live there for two weeks. What I’m trying to say is that Indonesia can be insanely cheap to travel in, and also that I know ways to flight hack. AKA I’m about to show you how you can at least save a hundred or two dollars on flights depending on where you’re coming from.
It’s actually no secret at all. All it takes is a little extra time and research, and the ability to be as flexible as possible with dates and travel time. I figured out this little trick one day by using Skyscanner’s flexible options. They literally have the option to click “Everywhere” for the departure field, and “Cheapest Month” for the dates, making it extremely easy to figure out where and when the cheapest flights are.
But then I figured out how to use this technique for finding the cheapest flights in the world to find the cheapest flights to my target destination. In this case, I’ll show you how it went for Indonesia. The idea is to find/create your own layovers using Skyscanner’s flexible options. You’ll seriously save a lot of money, plus you’ll have the option of visiting an additional country for a couple of days!
So here’s how it goes:
Jump To:
Find the First Leg of Cheap Flights
To start your “Flexible” option search, open your browser to Skyscanner.com and then:
1. In the “Departure” field, type your home airport AND tick the box for “Airports Nearby”
2. In the “Destination” field, don’t type anything, hover over it and “Everywhere” will pop up, click that
3. In the “Date” area, don’t put in an exact date, either click on “Cheapest Month” or if you have a month in mind, select “Search Entire Month”
4. The search results will show you the cheapest countries to fly to from your home airport – find the one closest to Indonesia with a big international airport (i.e. Taipei, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Kuala Lampar, Bangkok, etc.)
5. Write down your top two or three cheapest flight destinations and the dates that look like they’d work for you
Find the Second Leg Dates of Cheap Flights
6. Open a new browser window and go to Skyscanner.com again to start another separate flight search
7. This time for the Departure, enter one of the countries you found on the previous steps
8. For Destination, type “Bali” (or DPS for Denpasar)
9. Search “Whole Month” for the month you found the previous cheap flights in, then see if any of the dates match up (even if you have to spend a few days in the initial city)
Are the flexible cheap flights worth the extra journey?
10. Add the first leg and second leg of cheap flights’ prices together and see what the total cost is. Then do a search directly from your home departure airport to Bali. Is the cost drastically higher than what you found using the flexible cheap flights technique? Are the layovers better or worse? This is where you decide if you want to create your own layover journey for less, or let the airlines do it for you!
Check the current cheapest flights to Bali here!
Video Tutorial on How to Use Skyscanner’s Flexible Options:
Looking for more travel tips for Indonesia? Check out my other blog posts (please!):
10 Tips for Balling on a Budget in Bali
5 Awesome Waterfalls in Indonesia Worth Chasing
Disclaimer: This post is in collaboration with Skyscanner.com, however I came up with this flexible option technique on my own, and have been using it and posting about it for over a year. AKA I fully and honestly recommend using Skyscanner to do this technique, and am super proud to be working with them!
Nice tip! Looking for a flight to Europe from Mexico, suppose its best to fly back via the US. Never thought of inserting ‘everywhere’, definitely useful if you are not stuck to a certain date. Thanks for the advice, will keep that in mind when we are on longer travels.
Yeah flying from the U.S. is probably your best bet, BUT! I recently made a new discovery! You can also input an entire country as your departure location instead of just your home airport! That way you can see if any other cities are substantially cheaper!
I love skyscanner! That’s how I booked my roundtrip flight to Iceland in Oct. for about $345. 🙂 Can’t wait to book a little Eurotrip like you did.
That’s amazing!!! Yeah Europe flights are a lot of fun to book when they’re all under $30, haha! Hope you get to see as much as possible!!!
Yasssss!!! It’s so fun to use Skyscanner in Europe/Asia, flights are ridiculously cheap!
Thanks for the tips! I am actually thinking of going to Indonesia in 2017 and been trying to keep my eyes open for cheap flights. BTW, where did you end up spending your layover at when you went to Indonesia?