Making plans for travelling and finding best prices and deals on flight tickets requires a lot of decision-making, and can often be time consuming, too. But, fret not, as there is a solution to this.
Nowadays, you will find a couple of useful tools and services online that can quickly help you accomplish things, like finding flight deals, changes in airfares, low-priced fares, even getting notifications about these things. How cool is that! Similarly, there is a fare alert tool that is available online that you can make the most use of. We’ll show you how.
In this travel guide, we are going to give you an overview of flight price alerts and what it is. Also, we will show you a couple of examples on how you can easily set these airfare price alerts on your computer and mobile devices and save money.
Table of Contents
What is an Airfare Price Alert?
Generally speaking, an airfare price alert or flight fare alert is an online service (tool) that keeps track of flight prices, flight’s specific route, deals, etc. The tool can also be used by individuals who wants to look for, especially lower airfares on several airlines, even months in advance whenever booking flights.
However, the tool is not just limited to finding low-priced airfares from various carriers for you. If you subscribe to the service, you can get notifications immediately whenever there are new deals and changes in flight prices.
Such tool/service is provided mostly by online travel agencies (OTAs) and a few flight search websites as well. A few such providers include:
- Skyscanner
- Kayak
If you have used any of these websites (or their mobile apps) in the past, you may also be aware of their tool that lets you get notified about flight prices and deals. But, if you have not, then you can give it a try and see how it works for you.
Do I Need to Pay Fees for Using Such Services/Tools?
The flight fare alert services or tools are provided free of cost on websites and on mobile apps. These tools are operated and managed by OTAs (online travel agencies) on their respective websites and mobile apps, such as the ones that we listed above.
These online travel and flight search sites that allow you to subscribe for flight alerts simply provide the in-built tool as an option. So, it’s up to you whether you want to use the tool to find great deals on flights, or just do away with the regular flight searches.
How Do I Set an Airfare Price Alert?
Setting up flight price alerts involves a couple of steps before you can actually start using the service/tool online. Also, keep in mind the steps may vary from one provider to another, since their websites and/or mobile apps are not very much alike.
Below, we have provided steps to set up airfare price alerts on websites of various service providers, both on desktop/laptop computers and mobile devices as well.
Setting Flight Price Alert on Skyscanner Website
In order to set up airfare price alerts on Skyscanner’s website to get notified about flight deals immediately, see the steps given below.
Steps:
1. First, you will need to visit the Skyscanner.ca website or open the Skyscanner app on your mobile device.
Note: You can download and install Skyscanner app from Apple Store and Play Store.
2. Next, you will need to fill in your flight destination and dates, and click the Search Flights button.
3. Now, to set up a price alert for flights, from the search results page, click Get Price Alerts in the top left corner.
4. You will be required to sign up with your Google or Facebook account, or your e-mail address. To complete the sign up process, you will receive an e-mail to confirm your registration.
5. Once you are successfully registered, Skyscanner price alerts will be delivered as soon as they change, so you can book your trip.
In case you are not sure as to which airport to fly out of, you can still set up a price alert for the city. That way you will receive price alerts for flights to all airports in your preferred destination. This also increases your odds of scoring a good deal on flights.
Setting Flight Price Alert on Kayak Website
Kayak lets you create price alert for flight deals in several ways. For instance, it allows you to set up price alert directly from a flight search or hotel or from options which you have saved to your watchlist, or by creating a new alert via your profile.
In order to set up airfare price alerts on Kayak’s website to get notified about flight deals immediately, you simply need to perform a few similar steps.
To begin with, you can set airfare alerts for destination, or just airports using exact travel dates. You can start with your regular search, then you will need to select the “Track Prices” option provided in the “Watch” box. This option can be found in the top left corner of the search results on the site’s page.
If you have signed up already, Kayak, by default, will send you notifications daily via e-mail. However, the delivery of notifications is regardless of whether or not the price is dropping, although you can still easily change these notifications in the site’s settings page. Additionally, you can also see your current alerts right from your “Watchlist” page, which can be accessed by clicking on your profile. It can be found in the top right corner.
Setting Flight Price Alert on Momondo Website
In order to set up airfare price alerts on Momondo’s website to get notified about flight deals regularly, you will have to follow the same process as with the other search engines.
You will need to select the specific destination or nearby airports and the specific dates as well. After making the necessary selections, the results that are available will appear on your screen. Here, you will be able to set a Price Alert in the top left corner of the site’s page.
Again, like the others, you will need an account in order to sign up for the alert. You can create one quickly on the website.
After you have successfully created and registered with Momondo, the website will send you a maximum of two e-mails every week. This is good, especially when your trip is a fair a couple days or weeks later, and you are not as likely to see as many changes in the prices. But, if you are looking closer to your travel dates, a sudden drop in the flight’s price might get taken away before you even get an e-mail alert about it. This is just a possibility.
Setting Flight Price Alert on Google Flights Website
In order to set up airfare price alerts on Google Flights’ website to get notified about flight deals immediately, you simply need a few common steps. You can track a specific route or track specific flights and on specific dates.
Just search for your dates as you normally would, and then hit search. Above the search results is a button to “Track prices”, which will track the prices for all flights for those destinations and dates. You will need to be logged in with a Google account to receive notifications by e-mail, so if you are not logged in, it will prompt you to do so, or create an account.
Additionally, you can also have the service enabled on your smartphone by simply using any of the service provider’s mobile app. Their apps can be downloaded from Apple Store and Google Play Store, respectively.
How Can Using Airfare Price Alerts Save Money?
That’s a very important question, though. Online flight price alerts tool does not only notify you about the rise and fall in airfares of airline carriers and their routes, using the tool can also help you save money.
For instance, when you are booking a trip to a favourite destination, and during a particular date, if you also set up flight alerts either on your computer or mobile device, the tool will allow you to track prices constantly. When the tool is monitoring prices of airfares for you, it starts sending you notifications or alerts each time it finds low or average flight prices.
In the event that you’ve begun watching the value a while ahead of your travel, it lets you know when the price drops so you can grab the best deal. Also, better yet, you will not need to look for your flights every day, instead, the alert accomplishes basically everything for you and tells you whenever there is a change in prices of flights.
Conclusion
Tools like the airfare price alert, as we have seen above, can be pretty handy for travellers.
