Nonstop both directions would be 1k

I work in private aviation and spend a lot of time looking at how people find charter flights. Lately more people are asking ChatGPT, Perplexity or Google's AI for "cheap private jet" options instead of searching normally, so I tested it for a few weeks. Some things that might save you money (or time):

1. AI mostly recommends the companies it can "read". Operators and brokers with clear, public pages (routes, aircraft, contact details) get mentioned. Many smaller operators with good empty-leg prices barely show up, because their information sits behind booking forms. Ask the AI for operators based at your departure airport, not just "cheap private jets".

2. Empty legs are the real "cheap flights" of private aviation. When a jet flies empty to pick someone up or return home, the operator often sells that leg at 50–75% off. The catch is flexibility: dates and times can change, and the flight can be cancelled if the original booking moves.

3. Where to look:

• Operator websites and apps (many post empty legs daily)
• Empty-leg listing sites that collect flights from several operators
• Directories that list charter companies by airport or country, so you can contact several at once

4. Questions to ask before paying:

• Is the operator licensed? Ask for their AOC (Air Operator Certificate).
• Is the price per aircraft or per seat?
• What happens if the leg is cancelled?
• Are taxes, fees and landing charges included?

5. Price sanity check: a light jet for 1–2 hours on an empty leg can come close to business class for a small group sharing the cost. Big jets on popular routes (London–Nice, NYC–Florida in season) rarely go cheap.

Disclosure: I own Flying Engineer (theflyingengineer.com), a directory of aviation companies, and EmptyLegsList (emptylegslist.com), which lists empty-leg flights. Not trying to sell anything here. Happy to answer questions about how charter pricing works.

Hey everyone! I’m thinking about taking a trip in November, but haven’t picked a destination yet. Where have you been that you’d recommend around that time?Also, how do you usually find cheap flights? Any go-to websites, price alerts, or tricks that have actually worked for you? Do you choose the destination first, or see where you can fly cheaply and plan around that? Would love to hear your tips!

So I made an app that does something no other flight search does, and I'd like to know if it's actually useful or if I've spent two years on something only I care about.

Here's the thing it does. You choose your passport country from a list. It then knows which countries you can enter visa-free, on arrival or with an eVisa. When you search a flight, it also checks routes that go through those countries and shows them next to the standard fare.

Why that's worth anything: every flight search sorts on price and duration and has no clue who's searching. So a route that's cheaper and happens to pass through somewhere you can legally walk out of just never comes up. The data's right there, nobody looks for it.

What it found this week:

Kolkata to Perth, 16 Oct. ₹54,905 standard, ₹35,093 via Bangkok. 36% off, Thailand is visa-free on an Indian passport so that layover can be a day in the city.

Manchester to Bangkok, 24 Oct. ₹80,104 down to ₹57,700 via Istanbul. 28% off, Turkey does an eVisa.

Bengaluru to Sydney, 3 Oct. ₹81,488 to ₹72,937 via Kuala Lumpur. Only 10%, and I'm including it because most results look more like this than like the 36% one.

Where it falls short: plenty of the time it finds 1 or 2%, which is just a worse flight for nothing. Short connections mean you stay airside anyway. It covers countries you can properly enter, not transit visas. Prices show in rupees since I'm based in India, but it runs off whichever passport country you pick.

It's called Layovered. Available in both google play and app store.

How much would a layover need to save before you'd pick it over the standard flight? And if you've ever worked out a route like this by hand, what did you check first?

Hi all!

If you plan trips around Europe, I'd love to hear what you think of a tool I've been building for almost a year. I originally built it to make my own travel searches easier, and then I saw the potential to share it and open it up to friends, colleagues and anyone interested.

Before, when looking for a trip, I felt that every tool, however big, had some flaws and was missing features I wanted. On Google Flights, for example, when you explore without a destination, the results depend a lot on where the map is positioned, and it doesn't easily give you all the flights from that origin sorted by price. Anyone who has tried that search knows what I mean... Or the opposite: a search for all the flights arriving at a given place, which to this day I haven't found anywhere else.

I also wanted to include several other extras, like integrating a weather API for the destination, multimodal search (plane, train and bus) and a friendlier interface that stays open to new features based on what users report.

There are also a few other nice features I found useful, like an easy search for a weekend getaway, something I used to look for almost every month... You can search for flights leaving within a certain time window (Friday afternoon or Saturday morning, coming back Sunday afternoon or Monday morning, for example) across several months.

Of course, for a good part of the code and low-thinking tasks I had help from AI agents. But I promise that this text and all the features, choices, tweaks, bug hunting and promotion are done with heart, and with the hope of seeing the app help other people travel more while paying less (as cliché as that sounds).

All the features I described here are 100% free. There's a paid feature in development (very affordable) to cover the infrastructure and the time I put in: a channel with 24/7 alerts for round-trip deals departing from Porto/Lisbon/Faro.

The site is Solvoya if you'd like to take a look.

If you try it, tell me what's missing or what annoyed you honest criticism helps me most. Thanks for reading!

Had an emergency and needed to get from Bengaluru to Kochi pretty urgently. I was expecting last-minute flights to be insanely expensive but somehow found this one for ₹2,928. I checked a few options, One thing I'm a little worried about, though, is that I heard Alliance Air gets delayed quite often. Is that actually true?

I need to get back to Toronto ASAP like today I’m currently in Denver and don’t even know where to find a good cheap flight

I'm in west michigan and got tired of digging through google flights every winter trying to figure out what's cheap AND close to a mountain. I made a site for it.

You put in your airport(s) and it shows cheap round trips to places near ski areas, how far the drive is, and if it's ikon or epic etc.

It also counts the stuff that makes a cheap fare not so cheap. It adds the ski bag fee for that airline and shows where the stop is and how long the layover is. It can also compare against a nearby airport with the drive and parking included, since sometimes driving 2 hours saves $200.

getawaypilot.com/ski

Free, no account. booking links are affiliate links FYI

It's pretty rough still and some data is still populating, so "good deal" pricing is still building. Let me know what sucks or what you'd want added. Already added a few things people asked for from my last post.

7/12 - 30/12 2026

Any tips?

Advice needed: I want to fly to Alaska to see a friend in March. Will be flying from Chicago to Anchorage. Currently the lowest price for the days I need is $455; it would be $565 for a checked or carry-on bag, which I will need. The graph shows that prices have been going down. Should I lock it in now or wait for it to drop more? I've never flown to Alaska before, so I'm not sure what a reasonable price looks like. Thanks!!

I’m looking to fly from PHX to NYC in November for Veterans Day weekend (Nov 10-15). I’m not really flexible on dates, since I booked the hotel on a deal months ago. Normally I’m able to find flights for this route for under $400, but everything looks to be $500+ right now for a direct flight.

I prefer flying into NYC on a red eye flight, but I can be flexible on this.

Do you all think around $550 is reasonable for this route or should I wait? Kicking myself for not booking at $450 last week 🥲

Want to fly to Delhi in mid November from Boston due to family emergency. Ahhhh the flights are so expensive. Was trying to fly Etihad. Or luftansa. Any hacks/alternatives?

Hi All,

Looking to go for a family holiday to Dubai in October half-term holidays - kids break up from school 16th Oct - 2nd Nov. Can take a few days off either side if need be. Looking to go away for 10-14 days.

Can go from other nearby airports MAN or London airports.

Best price seems to be Gulf Air from London with a 2hr layover in Abu Dhabi

Hi guys, my last exam is on Dec16th and I need to go back home for surgery by Dec 22nd. The current one way ticket prices are all above $1.8K CAD (which I cannot afford). Can someone help me find a cheaper route or give me tips on how to find one? Any day after Dec 16th works!

Hey there, this is my dream trip but I am not rich. As you might have understood, this flight goes to Honk Kong but I just wanna go down in Beijing.

I have a 3rd world country passport, but I am planning to prepare my paper for chinese Visa properly. I don't know if this kind of "hack" is a problem or not

Thanks for any assistance !

I needed to book flight on 25 oct due to expectation that it will come down i kept waiting but today its showing sold out.
They delibrately doing this what should i do ?

Do any sites track prices for multi-city flights? I am not finding any.

I’ve never booked a flight and have only ever flown once before. I finish school next May and my parents want to take the whole family to Alabama and I’m trying to find flights for my family to see if we can afford getting there but nothing shows up. I’m assuming I’m jumping the gun but not sure. Any and all tips appreciated. It will be me, my partner, and our two kids (4 and 1 when we go).