Airfare deals don’t reach us the way they used to. Years ago, the airlines would list their unsold seats at a deep discount and promote the offers to travel agents as last-minute deals, sort of like piling clearance merchandise on a sale table in a department store. Travelers would look at the list of deals and hope the dates and destinations matched where and when the customer wanted to go.
But in 2026, technology changes airfares from minute to minute. Deals still exist, but now they’re a moving target.
As Jesse Neugarten, CEO and founder of Dollar Flight Club, explained to Pauline Frommer on a recent episode of The Frommer’s Travel Show podcast, if you spot a great low airfare today, it won’t wait around until it’s finally sold, the way last-minute deals did in the 1980s and ’90s. You have to jump fast and buy that deal before the algorithm sweeps it away.
To find an airfare steal, including for a cheap last-minute flight, you have to use tools that sift through the ever-changing crop of ticket prices for the airfares that happen to be lowest at the moment.
Here, in no particular order, is a handy list of tools to help you discover the cheapest airfare while the getting is good. You might need to supply the dates you’d like to travel, but you’ll leave your choice of destination open until you see the list of best prices. For last-minute flights, make sure you won’t need a visa for where you’re going.
Momondo
Momondo.com
In the search fields on the home page, fill in your origin airport, but don’t fill in the destination airport field. Instead, click that field and select “can’t decide where to go?”
You have to enter ideal dates, but the calendar will allow you to change to a flexible search covering 3 consecutive days.
The result will be a list of destinations with the lowest prices available right now. Click one and the search begins. Sometimes, the deals lead to third-party airfare sellers, but the prices shown are generally available and Momondo has a reputation for eliminating vendors that can’t show you the same prices when you click through. That’s one of the reasons Momondo is this year’s top champion in our regular study of the best-performing airfare search sites.
Momondo is a corporate cousin of Kayak, so if you click the link above, the Momondo website may—annoyingly—redirect to Kayak. The latter also has a “can’t decide” option, but our pricing tests find Kayak to be inferior, so to make sure you stay at Momondo.com, enter the URL directly into your web browser or download the Momondo mobile app.
Skiplagged
Skiplagged.com
In the search fields on the home page, fill in your origin airport, but in the destination airport field choose Anywhere. You’ll be shown a list of destination cards naming the lowest price the site can find for each place. Avoid the ones marked “skiplagging” for the most legit airline-backed deals. Skiplagged won’t allow you to be flexible with your dates, but the “Book with miles” tab does give you a separate section to find the best deals using points and miles.
Skyscanner
Skyscanner.com
In the search fields on the home page, fill in the origin airport, but in the destination field choose Explore Everywhere or use a general geographic term like “United States.” Click the Depart field and then choose Flexible Dates for the best prices over a month.
You’ll then see a lot of destination cards listing the lowest current airfares for a list of places across a calendar.
Google Flights
Google.com/travel/flights
For your flight destination, choose Anywhere. You’ll get a map result sprinkled with prices; use the zoom tool on the map to reveal more cities and prices.
Airglitch
Airglitch.com
This homegrown, noncorporate site, which is accepting new users slowly as a way to restrain server demands, plumbs the airlines’ ticket results for cheap low-fare accidents that yield you lesser-discovered savings. You’ll book directly with the airlines, not with a third party.
The catch is that for most of the deals, you must be willing to travel unconventionally, such as by leaving the airport during a layover or abandoning a return flight (so you can’t check luggage). The airlines hate these kinds of shenanigans, but we hate that these amazing prices prove airlines charge us way too much for some journeys. Airglitch’s free version restricts you to one-way planning in economy class, but $5 a month opens up more flexibility.
Delta Air Lines
Delta.com/us/en/flight-deals/current-flight-deals
Unknown to many, the airline maintains a list of some of its current deals. Choose your origin city and you’ll get a table of current lower airfares, along with their dates of validity. The results include deals made through points redemption, too.
American Airlines
AA.com/en-us/round-trip-deals
Here, American maintains a list of “low round trip domestic fares.” Change the “from” field to generate a list from a specific airport, with valid dates and a note about when the airline last reported seeing the fare (i.e., “Updated: 3 hours ago”).
Once you click, you’ll usually find at least one example of each promoted airfare, often for inconvenient routings, but most of the other results will be priced a smidge higher.
Southwest Airlines
Southwest.com/special-offers/flight-deals/
On Southwest’s deals page, scroll down to the list of “most popular flights” and make sure you have set your preferred origin airport. The resulting list of where the deals are will tell you the best departure date for each deal (warning: It’s likely to be an early morning flight). Click the deal and the resulting page may offer a few more dates with similarly decent prices.
