Did you snag the $75 flight deal to New Zealand? The $250 flights to the UAE? What about the $350 flights to Kenya? No? You missed out on ALL OF THESE!?!?

I’m sorry to hear that, I have some tips to help you make sure you don’t end up in this situation again. I’m giving you the game. After this there is no excuse for you missing out!

1. Subscribe to all the emails

There are a TON of websites that will give you the scoop on flight deals. I advise you to get on their mailing lists AND make sure those emails don’t get buried when they show up in your inbox.

Many email providers will tag these as “Promotions” or “Junk” and route them to a folder that you may not check often. Add their email to your contacts list, set up an auto-assigned label to these, star them as important. Do what you gotta do to make sure you see these emails.

Here’s a list of the best websites to get signed up with.

2. Follow the deal sites on social

Even though we all sign up for email lists with the best intentions (or to get whatever free download or discount that required us to), we often get the emails and don’t even open them. Let’s be real.  While this is absolutely your prerogative, its also a good way to miss out on the travel deals these amazing sites I listed above are trying to tell you about. It’s all good though, you can follow most of the travel deal sites on social media and get notifications when a new deal is posted.

Go follow them on Twitter and/or Facebook and get those notifications poppin.

3. recruit your friends as watchers

Friends don’t let friends miss out on flight deals!  When the Kenya deal dropped, I got AT LEAST 5 texts and 10 notifications from people tagging me on facebook. My homies who do AND don’t travel know how serious I am about traveling on a good deal and they look out for me.

Get you some friends who will let you know when a “sale” is happening, not just when there’s a new hilariously petty meme going around (although there’s value in that too, ijs).

4. Find a Tribe

If your current friend circle isn’t as addicted to travel as you are, no worries, there are ready made groups FULL OF TRAVEL ADDICTS.  Those groups are often the FIRST people to know about the really good glitch fares and travel deals. Join some groups and flourish. A few groups I’m part of that are my faves:

Wandering Moms – mothers who want to literally give their children the world

Nomadness Travel Tribe – travel is a lifestyle with this group of mostly people of color

Girls Love Travel – it’s CLEAR that girls love to travel, this group has over 300K members!

5. Put it out into The Universe

If you have a destination you’ve been wanting to go to, post it on FB “I’m DYING to hit Greece, it’s on my bucket list” You’d be surprised how many people pay attention and if they see a deal, they’ll tag you in it.  It’s happened to me a few times.

6. Be flexible

The art of snagging travel deals requires flexibility. If you’re trying to go to a specific place during a specific timeframe, you’re less likely to get a deal. Let the travel gods decide where you should be and when you should be there, your job is to just have faith and to make sure you have enough vacation days available.

Honestly, 90% of my international trips are determined by the travel gods, lol.

7. Travel to travel

Think outside of your city limits.  Some travel deals will require you to travel to other cities and that’s ok.  Quit often, the cost of the deal plus the cost of the flight to another city to catch the deal is STILL less than the regular cost of a flight from where you live to that destination.  For example, flights to Abu Dhabi from ATL range from $800-$1300. I booked a deal for $230 from Chicago to Abu Dhabi and it cost me about $200 to fly to Chicago. All in, I spent $430! **shimmies**

8. Have a cash stash for the deals

Stay ready so you don’t gotta get ready.  You need to have the money available to book these flight deals. I have a back-up savings account to stash up money for travel.  I use Digit but there are A LOT of ways you can save up money to travel.

I just recently wrote a blog post about Digit being the 1 small thing I do to fund my big travel addiction.

9. Have no fear  

You typically have 24 hours to cancel your flight, so don’t be afraid of not being able to get out of a deal you booked hastily.

I know it’s tough to make a snap decision to travel to Croatia because there’s so much you don’t know – where would you stay, who could go with you, where the hell is Croatia on a map anyway? – here’s the thing, you have 24 hours to get those answers. What you DO NOT have is time to book the deal, some deals don’t even last 2 hours. Book dat ish and ask questions later.

Give yourself 23 hours to feel comfortable with your decision, not that you have to plan the whole trip in 23 hours, but just that you feel comfortable you can make it work between now and your departure time. If you don’t, cancel the flight, no problem.

10. wait for no one

You will never go anywhere waiting on friends.  I posted a deal to Peru once, told my friends about it.  One friend said “I’m waiting for such and such to tell me if he can go”….an hour later, the deal had disappeared and such and such STILL hadn’t given them an answer.  Your bad, homie. I had a GREAT time in Peru with my friends who didn’t hesitate to #bookdatish, lol.

I hope this post was helpful and may you never miss out on flight deals again!