Google Flights is our go-to tool for finding the cheapest flights available. As you would expect from Google, it excels at saving us a lot of time searching for multiple airlines and third-party websites to find the best deals.

Google Flights Australia makes it easy to compare prices, dates, airlines, times, layover duration, connecting airports and more. You can find cheap airfares, the cheapest airport to fly to or from, all around the world and in Australia.

If you are flexible with dates, you can use the calendar view, date grid, and price graph options to view the cheapest flights by date over a two-month calendar period.

Occasionally prices may jump in price mid-search or after selecting flights. We recommend you try searching directly with other travel search engines like Skyscanner or Momondo (also suggested here on our Travel Resources page) and even directly with the airline.

Skyscanner is one of our favourite travel search engines, helping us scour the Internet for the lowest possible rates on airfares, hotels and car hire (plus train tickets via their app) before delivering those results to us.

Skyscanner is not an online payment processor or online travel agent (OTA).

The airline, hotel, car hire company or travel agent are responsible for processing your payment and securing your reservation when you book a flight, hotel or car using Skyscanner's website or mobile app. From that point onwards, management or questions about your booked reservations are dealt directly with the airline, hotel, car hire company or travel agent.

One great feature of Skyscanner we use regularly is Price Alert. Once you've set up an alert for your preferred destination and dates, Skyscanner will check the fares and send you an email or push notification immediately to help you find automatically the best price for your trip. This feature is a great cost and timesaver!

Momondo is a travel metasearch site. It aggregates and searches 900+ airlines, online booking sites, travel agencies, search engines, and other online travel discount sites to find and compare cheap flights, hotels, train tickets, and car rental deals worldwide. KAYAK, also mentioned on this page, manages Momondo.

By not adding hidden fees or charges or using cookies to raise prices, Momondo pulls data for your selected route to show you all available flight options. These search results rank and highlights the cheapest, quickest, and best flights. When searching for hotels, you can sort by recommended, best guest rating and cheapest.

It provides a similar service to SkyScanner with a couple of points of difference.

Momondo offers hotel price matching inside a 24-hour window. Compared to Skyscanner, it doesn’t have a dedicated deals page or section. Also, as it doesn’t take bookings, it doesn’t use promo codes. Momondo includes small, budget and lesser-known airlines as it works to find the lowest airfare.

Fare alerts, price calendar, and its best flight feature all balance costs and flight time.

KAYAK is an online travel agency (OTA). It is one of the most popular travel metasearch engines to find cheap flights, hotels, car rentals, cruises and holiday packages worldwide.

It is excellent for its ability to view flexible dates and explore destinations when you don't know where you want to go, and you can filter by aircraft, flight quality, and where you have a layover.

However, KAYAK is slow, compared with Google Flights, runs advertisements cluttering the dashboard and doesn't search small OTAs, only the biggies, like Expedia and Orbitz. Unlike Momondo, who KAYAK manages, does.

From Hacker Fares help you save on round-trip flights, to Hacker Stays save money on hotel bookings, to its suite of tools within its app to organise your trip itinerary — KAYAKs' features help you find the best deals on flights, hotels, and more.

You can view and select the best prices. When you are ready to pay, you are sent to another booking website to finalise your itinerary and pay with your credit card.

Webjet is Australia and New Zealand’s largest online travel agency (OTA).

Webjets online travel tool and app enables customers to search and book the best domestic and international travel flight deals, travel insurance, car hire (including motorhomes) and hotel accommodation worldwide.

To date, we have only used Webjet to make quick flight comparisons on the go.

When you open the Webjet App, you have three options, hotels, flights and rental cars. You can use the tool for any size booking, from finding a last-minute hotel bed for the night to your next dream multi-stop adventure.

WebJets point of difference is its excellent selection of local hotel options, in addition to its flight and hotel package deals and international content offerings. Of particular note is the often hard-to-find hotels in Australian and New Zealand regional areas, Some additional features are its Webjet Deal Finder tool that helps you see the best deals around your travel dates and its Webjet Travel Toolbox - a zone to to find international tips, current flight deals, how-to's and alerts.

FlightConnections has been a game changer for us as frequent travellers, particularly for finding connecting flights to Europe and Asia once we've departed Australia. This website and app are one of the best tools for travel hacking, trip planning and travel inspiration we've added to our travel toolkit.

Search, find and compare any flight path or airline route with their interactive flight maps!

From finding all direct flights from your airports to routes between two airports to filtering by an airline to flight timetables and schedules — FlightConnections' features make it easy to plan your dream trip at a glance.

This intuitive, user-friendly and fairly accurate tool is available in free and paid "premium" versions. The latter has a few extra key features, such as numerous filters, a full-screen map view, flight schedules, a faster experience, and no advertisements.

With comprehensive coverage of airports worldwide, and an effective filter system for alliances, airlines, classes of service, and prices, FlightConnections is an invaluable tool for your trip-planning process.

The Hopper mobile app helps travelers find and secure the best price for flights, hotels, homes and car rentals. You can use the app to explore Flash Deals and earn Carrot Cash for free.

Based on Hopper predictions, you can use the app to find the best time to book. They're so confident in their app, they spruke 95% accuracy, and up to one year in advance!

Go to the App Store or Google Play to download the app.

SeatGuru is a valuable free online resource that lets you view the specific cabin layouts, seat specifications, and aircraft configurations for nearly 1,300 airlines. You can shop for cheap flights and car rental deals too!

We regularly use SeatGuru's most popular function, its Seat Maps.

After we have booked our flights and before selecting our seats, we head over to SeatGuru's Seat Maps.

This mapping feature is often a quick way to check that we will not get the worst seat on the plane. Firstly, enter the airline, date and flight number into the system and follow the steps.

The final result is a picture of the aircraft configuration, with a colour-coded seating layout, and all its cabin classes, including the restrooms, galleys, bassinets and exits. Seats that are coloured green are the best and why.

Another excellent feature is SeatGuru's Comparison Charts. If you are like us, we often bid for and fly Premium Economy Class on long-haul flights, not only for the extra space but other trimmings like priority check-in, separate cabin, amenity kits, and a better food and drinks menu. Their Comparison Charts provide a list of what you can expect in additional comfort and in-flight amenities.

Bookmark SeatGuru when planning your next trip, choosing between different aircraft, and selecting the best seat and in-flight amenities to ensure you enjoy the best flying experience possible.

John has been a Priority Pass member for more than a decade. As his wife, I can also indulge in all the airport experiences and other in-airport benefits that membership offers us as frequent international travellers. So too, our family and other guests we invite to join us in the Priority Pass lounge.

Priority Pass Members have access to over 1,300 lounges and airport experiences worldwide - from airport dining and retail to complimentary refreshments, free Wi-Fi, spa treatments and massage rooms at discounted rates, and sleeping areas.

The Priority Pass app can also make navigating large airports a breeze using its bespoke airport guides and indoor maps. Think exploring impressive top airports to kill layover time, like Singapore Changi, Dubai, and Hong Kong International Airports, to name a couple.

You can fly with any airline and in any class and enjoy the Lounge Class experience.

Before boarding your plane, sit down, stretch out and enjoy complimentary drinks, refreshments and pre-flight bites in the airport lounge exclusive to members. Our experience at Fiji Airways Premier Lounge, Nadi International Airport, was an absolute delight before boarding back home to Australia.

As travel bloggers, we always take advantage of the lounges charging points and free Wi-Fi being productive.

If you arrive early, many lounges offer a selection of pre-flight spa and massage treatments to ease the jet lag and truly relax before your next departure.

Join Priority pass as a standard member annual fee of US$99. You won't regret it!

At the time of writing, Cathay Pacific Airlines had renamed its frequent flyer program Asia Miles — a merging of the Marco Polo Club and Asia Miles. The program offers a points-based system to redeem flights, services and partner purchases and is beneficial for long-haul flight redemptions on Cathay Pacific Airlines.

Asia Miles is earned through credit cards, flying and bonus points' promotions and is redeemable for award flights in all classes.

We have flown with Cathay Pacific on numerous occasions to Hong Kong, as they offer competitive prices, but more importantly, great flying times to and from Australia. Their cabin service is second to none providing a wonderful in-flight experience.

While their codeshare is limited, Qantas and Qatar Airways are partners for flights in and out of Australia. We always look at their prices and service times when travelling to Asia.

Emirates Airlines has its Emirates Skywards loyalty program rewarding frequent flyers with points to redeem for flights, services and purchased goods.

Alongside Qantas Frequent Flyer points, Emirates Skywards miles can be earned through credit cards (via initial sign-up bonuses and ongoing spending), flying on Emirates and Qantas, and bonus point promotions through their travel, retail and lifestyle partners.

To date, Rae and I have not flown with Emirates. However, we have signed up for the Skywards program to see any specials or offers that may come about.

Whilst residing in Australia, distances to outer-lying countries are the main issue when looking for flights, so all options are open. With attractive stopovers via Dubai on the way to European destinations, Emirates codeshares with Qantas Airlines are a bonus. So when looking at going to Europe, the lure of the luxurious Airbus A380 that services Brisbane to Dubai is always enticing.

Etihad Guest is the loyalty program of Etihad Airways.

This loyalty program is for those Etihad flights to major destinations going via Abu Dhabi or simply travelling on its partner airlines like Virgin Australia and Air New Zealand.

Etihad Guest Miles are earned through credit cards, flying with airline partners and bonus points promotions and are redeemable for award flights in all classes, including Etihad's luxurious First Class Apartments. Check out how to earn Etihad Guest Miles.

Rae and I have used Etihad Airlines to fly to Rome and return, with a 48-hour layover in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates — an economical flight route alternative to Dubai.

Abu Dhabi offers its visitors plenty of things to see and do. And, if you enjoy road-tripping as much as we do, Dubai is only a one-hour car rental drive away. We did it, and so can you!

It is free to join, and upon sign-up, you will receive 500 welcome bonus miles with your first flight.

Qantas' official loyalty program is called the Qantas Frequent Flyer program and is one of Australia's most popular frequent flyer programs. You may earn Qantas points through Qantas credit cards, flying, bonus points promotions and much more.

Rae and I have flown with Qantas Airlines on several occasions, domestically and abroad including their OneWorld alliance and partner airlines, e.g., JetStar and Fiji Airways. To date, we are not members of their frequent flyer program.

Being an Australian airline, you may be probably wondering why we are not a member or fly with them regularly. Firstly, they may operate regular flights from Australia, but their price point is higher than their competition. Secondly, when we have flown with them, unfortunately, we do not feel their level of customer service is up to par compared to other airlines we have flown with over the years.

They do codeshare with many other airlines giving them a competitive edge and advantage. However, never say never. If Qantas improves its overall game, we may join in the future.

Privilege Club is Qatar Airways' frequent flyer program offering an exclusive range of member privileges based on four membership tier levels. For example, Qcredits are a reward benefit for our Gold and Platinum members. The higher your membership tier, the more benefits you will enjoy.

You can spend your earned Privilege Club Avios reward currency on award flights, upgrades, extra baggage, shopping at Qatar Duty-Free and more.

We have flown with Qatar Airways from Australia to Europe as it offered economical flights with good departure times with a short layover in Doha. Qatar Airways also offer stopover packages encouraging travellers to stay longer and explore Qatar.

Another main reason we fly with Qatar Airways is their partnership with Virgin Australia and its Velocity Points Program (of which we are also members). With Velocity Points, you can book Qatar Airways flights in Economy, Business and First Class.

However, it is worth noting the initially promoted price to fly did not include seat selection. Consequently, these additional requirements meant the final flight cost was slightly higher upon completion of the booking.

KrisFlyer is Singapore Airlines’ loyalty program to earn and redeem rewards beyond flying. Dining, shopping, experiences and other things and more.

Unlike Qantas and Velocity frequent flyer points, earned simply in Australia, Krisflyer miles are a little harder to find. You can earn Krisflyer miles points currency through credit cards, flying on Singapore Airlines, Star Alliance and non-star Alliance partner airlines (e.g. Virgin Australia), bonus points promotions and booking hotel stays and car rentals.

There is also the PPS Club, an elite level of the Krisflyer program that you can enter if you meet specific requirements. As a PPS Club member, you’ll have access to lounges worldwide, a bigger check-in baggage allowance, guaranteed reservation in Economy Class and other special privileges.

Rae and I have flown with Singapore Airlines on many occasions throughout Asia and Europe, as they offer very competitive prices and excellent inflight service.

Singapore Changi Airport is one of the world's best international airports to shop, dine and explore, like its butterfly garden, a four-story slide, movie theatre, rooftop swimming pool and its tallest in the world indoor waterfall, to name a few.

Virgin Australia has the Velocity Frequent Flyer loyalty program making it easier for its members to earn reward points sooner via credit cards, flights, insurance, fuel, hotels, shopping and more. Velocity Points may be redeemed for travel services, flights, or to spend on their online platforms for products.

Living in Australia, this is our go-to Airline for codeshare and partnered airlines to fly domestically within or abroad from Australia. There are also more options and links to purchasing products and services and earning points, such as Flybuys — an everyday loyalty card from Coles Supermarket.

Rae and I have booked many flights and upgrades domestically and internationally with Virgin and its Velocity partners. We have even used our Velocity Points for car rentals, hotel bookings, products, gift cards - even wine. The flexibility to book one return flight from Europe using Velocity Points is a big money saver, especially for mid-week flights.