Flight Price Trackers: 6 Sites That Will Find the Cheapest Airfare for You
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Planning a trip often takes weeks of research and comparison, with airfare being one of the biggest factors travelers watch before booking. One of the smartest ways to save both time and money is by subscribing to alerts from a flight price tracker, which notifies you when fares drop or when an especially cheap deal becomes available.
Unlike broad “deal” newsletters, these alerts are tailored to your specific travel dates, routes, and sometimes even preferred airlines—a convenient “set it and forget it” option for travelers who don’t want to constantly search for the lowest fare. We reviewed the top flight price tracking sites to break down the pros and cons of each.
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The 6 Best Flight-Price Trackers
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Airfarewatchdog
- Track Multiple Routes: Set alerts for multiple home airports and destinations
- International Flight Deals: Get notified about the best deals on overseas trips
- Flight Deals on All Cabin Classes: Receive deals across Economy, Premium Economy, Business, and First Class.
- Advanced Filters: Narrow down your daily roundup of deals with a robust set of onsite filters, so the results match exactly what you want.
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KAYAK
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Skyscanner
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Hopper
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Google Flights
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Going
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Price Tracking for Premium Fares
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Additional Tips for Finding Cheap Flights
- Be flexible with your travel dates and times. Weekdays and off-peak hours are generally cheaper than weekends and holidays.
- Start watching prices early, especially if you’re planning a trip during peak travel times.
- Consider flying into budget-friendly airports or nearby regional airports.
- Sign up for email newsletters from airlines you prefer to receive updates on promotions and sales.
Airfarewatchdog, SmarterTravel’s sister site, will send you an alert the instant a price goes down so you can snag it before it is gone. Set your home airport and track prices for up to three destinations (as a free user) or monitor the price from up to ten home airports and 50 destinations (as a premium user).
With the Premium membership ($79 per year), you’ll access more features to make finding your next trip even easier:
Pros of Airfarewatchdog: Airfarewatchdog has a useful feature that allows you to save a flight you’re considering and receive notifications if the price changes, helping you visually track ticket trends. When browsing deals on any route, you can refine your search with filters for month, airline, cabin class (Premium), and number of stops (Premium)—giving you a fully customizable experience. That means the results you see are deals you’d actually want to book, not just cheap fares that look great until you realize they’re on an airline you hate or have multiple layovers.
Cons of Airfarewatchdog: The Free Tier for flight alerts is currently limited to routes within the US and Canada.
Kayak (part of the Booking.com empire) is a robust flight price tracker. You can tailor the tracking filters as tightly as you want: by destination, class of service, number of stops, and more. Kayak can also track hotel prices. Both are possible by selecting the “Track Prices” switch on the left side of the results page once you’ve searched for your specific dates.
Pros of Kayak: Kayak includes Southwest fares in its results, a feature that many other flight tracking sites don’t offer.
Cons of Kayak: Does not offer a flight loyalty program (although their Kayak Explorer Rewards does apply to hotel bookings), so if you book through them, there is no incentive for points.
Skyscanner, a UK-based metasearch system, operates in much the same way as Kayak. Skyscanner’s “Get Price Alerts” option on the left side of the results page allows you to choose from email, Facebook, Google, and Apple to create an alerts account and start getting emails easily—all you have to do is enter an email address for them to be forwarded to.
Pros of Skyscanner: Allows you to search “everywhere” as a destination, providing inspiration if you prioritize price over destination.
Cons of Skyscanner: Skyscanner may sometimes offer ghost fares that are no longer valid.
Hopper is a mobile-first flight search tool, perfect for those glued to their phones. When the price of a fare drops, you will receive a notification directly on your phone, which you can click on to review the fare. There are no emails to check; just click on the alert. They have a great prediction model that tells you if the fare is high and when they think it will drop, so you know when to be on the lookout for those alerts and get ready to book.
Pros of Hopper: Best tracking when using your phone to book airfare.
Cons of Hopper: Hopper does have a website, but flight alerts must be set through the app.
Not a website so much as a broader platform built into the internet giant Google, Google Flights provides an outstanding range of choices for tracking flight prices. Enter an origin/destination, travel dates, how many tickets you want, and class of service, plus screening for the number of stops and other variables to track as many individual flights as you wish. Google Flights notifies you by email if the fare drops below the value you initially entered during your search. As an added bonus, Google Flights will also tell you the cheapest time to fly to a given destination, or the most affordable place to fly in a given time period, if you’re unsure of where and when to travel.
Pros of Google Flights: You can choose whether to receive alerts for specific dates or just for the route you are searching for in general, in case you’re flexible.
Cons of Google Flights: They don’t always display the lowest price available.
Going (formerly Scott’s Cheap Flights) operates on a membership-based model. You can choose from three tiers: Limited (free), Premium ($49/year), and Elite ($199/year). The free membership only allows you to view deals from your home airport. To see specific destinations, you’ll need to upgrade.
The higher your membership, the more deals you will be sent, and the more likely you will get the best deal for the routes and cities you choose. While Going does have an app, it's less robust than Hopper.
Pros of Going: Easy step-by-step alert sign-up.
Cons of Going: Without a paid membership, you can only see flights from your home airport to all domestic destinations. Tracking specific routes or individual destinations isn’t available
For premium fares (premium economy, business, and first-class), you can use any ITA Matrix-based site, which covers all fare classes. Those who want more detailed information on first- and business-class deals, however, can subscribe to paid sources, such as Airfarewatchdog’s Premium subscription.