Lowest-price flight tickets — 12 tricks that actually work for Indian travellers
By Diya Verma (Diya Verma flies from Tier-2 Indian cities and chases every possible fare hack — reposition flights, hidden-city ticketing, mileage runs and OTA bundle tricks. She has booked 200+ international trips out of Lucknow, Indore and Jaipur.) · Published · 11 min read
Getting flight ticket low prices is part timing, part tool choice, and part knowing which rules airlines bend and which they do not. Here are twelve specific habits that have saved money on real bookings — not the usual recycled tips.
TL;DR — the 12 tricks at a glance
- Search flexible dates, not a fixed day
- Check the airline direct site after finding a price
- Set a price alert and wait a week
- Fly midweek: Tuesday/Wednesday departures are cheaper
- Book early-morning or late-night flights
- Use multi-city booking for one-way pairs
- Split into two one-ways when it helps
- Catch flash sales by signing up for airline emails
- Skip seat selection, baggage and meal upsells if you do not need them
- Pay by UPI to avoid card surcharges
- Consider Tier-2 alternate airports
- Use points and miles — even a little goes a long way
Trick 1–3: search and timing habits
Search flexible dates. If you type a fixed date into a booking site, you are limiting yourself to whatever inventory the airline has priced for that exact slot. Instead, use FlightGPT, Google Flights' calendar view, or Skyscanner's 'whole month' grid and look at a window of seven to ten days around your preferred travel time. I have seen ₹5,000–₹8,000 swings on Indore–Delhi round trips just by moving two days.
Always check the airline site directly. OTAs aggregate fares but charge convenience fees. After you find a good price on a search engine, open the airline's own website — IndiGo.com, air.india.in, akasaair.com — and compare. Sometimes the airline shows the same fare without the OTA's ₹300–₹400 tack-on. Occasionally you will find a web-exclusive discount that aggregators do not carry.
Set a price alert and act on it. Google Flights and Skyscanner both have price-alert features. Set one the moment you identify a route and a rough travel window. When the alert fires and the price matches or beats what you considered acceptable, book it. Do not chase a lower price that may never come — I have done that and ended up paying double.
Trick 4–6: day, time and booking structure
Fly midweek if possible. Tuesday and Wednesday departures on domestic Indian routes are consistently cheaper than Thursday, Friday or Sunday departures. The price difference on metro-to-metro routes can range from ₹800 to ₹3,000 depending on how close the sale window falls to a weekend surge. This is not always true for international routes where connecting schedules matter more, but for purely domestic trips it is a reliable pattern.
Book early-morning or late-night flights. The 5:30–7:00 AM slots and the 11 PM onwards slots are the least popular on domestic routes. Airlines price them lower because they know fewer people choose the crack-of-dawn alarm or the midnight arrival. If you can manage the inconvenience, these are consistently the cheapest slots on any given day.
Use multi-city or split bookings strategically. If you are flying from, say, Jaipur to Singapore, check whether booking Jaipur–Delhi and Delhi–Singapore as separate segments (possibly on different airlines) beats the through-booking price. This is especially useful when a domestic LCC can get you to the hub more cheaply than the international carrier's own connecting fare. Yes, you carry the connection risk yourself, but on a same-terminal connection with four or more hours of buffer, that risk is manageable.
Trick 7–9: fare types and upsell avoidance
Split into two one-ways when the maths work. Return fares on Indian LCCs are not always cheaper than two one-ways. On routes where IndiGo and Akasa compete heavily (Bangalore–Delhi, Mumbai–Hyderabad), a one-way on IndiGo + a one-way on Akasa can undercut the cheapest return on either airline by ₹1,500–₹3,000. Run the numbers both ways before assuming the 'return fare' is the deal.
Catch flash sales. IndiGo runs 'Happy Hours' (usually midnight to 6 AM) with fares as low as ₹999 base on short routes and ₹2,499 on medium-haul domestic. Akasa does periodic blitzes. Air India Express has done ₹1,499–₹1,999 sale fares to Gulf destinations. These are genuine, not gimmicks — they clear unsold inventory and the prices are real. Sign up for airline newsletters and follow them on Instagram and X. The sale is usually announced 24–48 hours in advance and lasts 24–36 hours.
Say no to the add-on pile. Base fares on Indian LCCs are cabin-baggage-only. Every add-on — seat selection (₹200–₹600), check-in baggage (₹500–₹1,200 per sector), meal pack (₹250–₹450) — gets piled on during checkout. If you are flying Delhi–Kolkata for a three-day trip with only a laptop bag, you do not need any of these. The 'saver' bundles OTAs offer that combine seat + bag + meal often cost more than the sum of what you actually need.
Trick 10–12: payment, airports and points
Pay by UPI or net banking. Most Indian OTAs and airline sites levy a convenience fee of 1.5–2% on credit card payments and sometimes a flat ₹150–₹300 on debit cards. UPI and net banking are typically free. On a ₹12,000 round-trip fare, the UPI route saves ₹180–₹240 — small, but free money.
Consider Tier-2 alternate airports. This is the most underused trick for travellers who live in or can get to a secondary city. Flying out of Lucknow, Indore, Coimbatore, Surat or Thiruvananthapuram instead of the nearest metro can save ₹2,000–₹6,000 on international routes. Why? Fewer passengers compete for those seats, and airlines price them lower to drive load factor. I have booked Lucknow–Dubai for less than the cheapest Delhi–Dubai on the same dates multiple times. Always check your local airport before defaulting to the metro hub.
Use points — even occasionally. You do not need a huge mileage hoard. Air India Flying Returns, IndiGo BluChip, and co-branded credit cards (HDFC Infinia, SBI Card ELITE) accumulate points on everyday spending. Redeeming even 5,000–8,000 miles against a ₹3,000–₹4,000 upgrade or a short domestic sector brings the effective cost of the itinerary down materially. If you fly more than four or five times a year, not engaging with a frequent flyer programme is leaving money on the table.
Bottom line
None of these tricks require a special subscription or secret knowledge. They just require paying attention to timing, structure and add-on choices. The three highest-impact ones are flexible-date searching, checking the airline site directly, and catching a flash sale once in a while. The rest compound on top of those.
Start a flexible-date search on FlightGPT. For more on cheap-fare strategy, see: how to find the cheapest flight tickets from India, cheapest time of day to fly, and why the same flight costs different prices for different people.
Fares and fees change — check the live price before you book.
Frequently asked questions
What is the cheapest day to book flights in India?
Tuesday and Wednesday departures are generally cheaper than weekend ones. For the act of booking, there is no universally cheapest day to purchase, but checking prices midweek when demand from weekend-planning searches has dropped sometimes shows slightly lower fares.
Do IndiGo flash sales actually have real cheap fares?
Yes. IndiGo Happy Hours and other flash sales offer genuinely low base fares — ₹999 to ₹2,499 on many domestic routes. The catch is they last only 24–36 hours and require flexible dates. The fares are real, but the 'base fare' excludes baggage and seat selection add-ons.
Is it cheaper to book a return fare or two one-ways in India?
It depends on the route and the carriers. On competitive routes like Bangalore–Delhi and Mumbai–Hyderabad, mixing a one-way on IndiGo with a one-way on Akasa can undercut any single-carrier return fare by ₹1,500–₹3,000. Always compare both options before booking.
Is flying from a Tier-2 city actually cheaper than from a metro?
Often, yes — especially for international routes. Lucknow, Indore, Coimbatore and other secondary airports have lower load factors, so airlines price seats cheaper to fill them. The trade-off is fewer frequency options and sometimes a domestic connection to reach a hub for onward travel.
Should I pay for travel insurance through the OTA checkout?
Usually not. The bundled insurance sold during OTA checkout is priced for convenience, not value. If you want travel insurance, compare standalone policies separately — you will typically get better coverage for the same or less money.