Thursday, May 15, 2014

Finding Cheap Flights to Scotland

Man have I been busy people! Sorry for the lack of posting. I'm sure you got up every day extremely disappointed and unsure how to start your day as you realized my blog had not been updated, which of course caused a disruption in your schedule and thus much distress to you. ;)

I've been traveling with and hosting my aunt's and uncle's visit to Aberdeen! We had a great time! More about that later. At the same time, my mom and I have been diligently searching for a cheap flight to bring my sister, Cacie, to Scotland for our annual visit. Chloe is too young to make the trip without our parents. We've been searching since February for June travel. Although a risk, we seem to have found the best priced tickets this week, just a few weeks before travel! My mom found a ticket today for only $930. All other tickets with decent travel durations have been $1700 and holding. Anything less than $1700 typically had crazy connections (too much for a 16-year old on her first trip alone) or travel durations of 22-44 hours (LONG layover times)! We got lucky with this cheap flight. She only has a 2-hour layover at each stop. She does have 2 connections, but with a 2-hour layover, she won't have to sit around very long. Hopefully there will be no delays.

So how did we find the deal? Here is a list of the best (in my opinion) sites my mom and I were searching daily, not including our searches of the airlines' sites:

  • Skyscanner (compares prices across airlines)
  • Expedia
  • Kayak.com (compares prices across airlines)
  • ASAP Tickets (compares prices across airlines. At this site you can book an unaccompanied minor as long as the last name on the credit card used is the same as the Minor's last name. I e-mailed them to ask when it didn't work. They responded promptly.)


We set up price alerts as well, which helped. In the end, my mom found the best deal on Expedia. Their site does not allow you to book an unaccompanied person under 18, even if the airline considers 12+ or 16+ an adult. My mom called Expedia, explained my sister's age and that she has made this exact trip in the past. They let her book the ticket with them on the phone, no problem! Another bit of advice, I noticed that the cheapest tickets from the USA to Scotland appeared early in the morning (US times).

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