Cheap Flights to Nepal | Best Way to Book Flights

Author | December 19, 2019 | Nepal | No Comments

Are you planning to visit Nepal? Nepal is celebrating Visit Nepal 2020, a year dedicated to the tourism sector of Nepal. Any Nepali residing outside Nepal or any tourist or visitor who is planning to come to Nepal, this article on Cheap flights to Nepal will be helpful to everyone.

Not just to Nepal but any travelers who want to book flight tickets online, this article will help you to know about flight booking sites, how to book flight tickets at a cheaper price and how to safeguard yourself from mistakes that may occur while booking a flight ticket online. We are hopeful that you will find this article useful.

Now, as we know everything is done Online from booking tickets of Movies to Flights. Surely, you will use a website now, to buy tickets as the easiest and convenient way for the cheapest price. But you might be worried, from which website you should book your flight ticket to get the cheapest airfare with the best deal?

This is not just your problem, now everyone faces a similar problem while trying booking flight tickets. The main problem which you will encounter at first is the endless options when it comes to choosing the best flight booking website nowadays.

Certainly, there are more than dozens of websites to book online flight tickets, even you can book directly from your airline. But you cannot search and view all the airlines one after another to book tickets, so definitely you will go for an online travel agency or flight metasearch sites to book flight tickets online.

When you choose flight booking websites to book flights, which are also known as online travel agencies (OTAs), even in those websites there is no guarantee that the price you viewed is the best price available. So to book flights with the best deals you need to learn to use some resources that can help ensure you’re not overpaying for a similar flight ticket which is available at a cheaper price. And to ensure that you are not overpaying, you have to search for some of the popular flight booking websites, which we have listed below.

Where to Find Cheap Flights?

Here we have enlisted some of the best websites to look after before buying Flights ticket online. Not just to book the cheapest flight to Nepal, these websites are helpful to book flights ticket to anywhere that you want to visit.

1. Cheap flights on Expedia

Expedia is one of the most popular online travel agency websites. In Expedia, you will also get an add-on feature like hotel booking to your itinerary. This offer provided by Expedia can save you money, but you need to compare prices before you book.

When you book flights through Expedia.com, it does not charge a booking fee on round-trip flights if it’s the same airline. They also display your total fare when you select your fare from the list of options. You can view from what is and isn’t included in the fare, including seat selection, changes, cancellations, and baggage rules for the flight you are going to book.

Expedia has become one of the biggest brand names in OTA and is being used by people since the 1990s. Now Expedia owns most of the Online Travel Agencies (OTA) such as Trivago.com, Travelocity.com, Hotels.com, CarRental.com, Hotwire, CheapTickets, eBookers, etc. Expedia.com provides services like flight booking, car rentals, hotel booking, vacation packages, and cruise ship bookings.

The Expedia also has provided offers like the Expedia Rewards program. When you Sign-up with Expedia on the website and spend 1$ on hotels, cars, packages, cruises you will get 2 points for every 1$ you spend, but in the case of the flight you will get 1 point for every 5$ you spent. And if you use Expedia mobile app to book, you will be awarded double points for all.

These rewards can by an increase by becoming silver and gold members in Expedia. You can use these points at checkouts or while booking. For every 140 points, you will get a $1 discount on booking. The earning potential of Expedia rewards through flights isn’t great as it is the lowest of all other features.

So Expedia.com is one of the best options that you have to book a cheaper flight to Nepal and get bonus points for your travel and expenses through Expedia.com.

Pros and Cons of Expedia.com:

Pros:

Expedia shows baggage fees, fare alerts, flexible date prices
They reward you for every money you spend using its services
Expedia generally double-checks that you understand how much is the fare you’re choosing before clicking the ‘select’ button. They provide a bit of transparency in terms of OTA flight bookings.

Cons:

Booking flights through Expedia do not provide many rewards as much as you get from booking its other services.
The flight’s fares may be higher in Expedia than while direct booking through airlines.

Check also: Visa for Nepal – Visa Type, Duration and Fees

2. Cheap flights on Booking.com

Booking.com is another popular Online Travel Agency (OTA) which makes it easy to find and book flights. It is owned by another Booking Holding Incorporation which also owns different popular OTAs such as Priceline.com, Agoda.com, Kayak.com, Cheapflights, Rentalcars.com, momondo, Mundi and OpenTable.

As two Giants in OTA are Expedia and Booking.com, Expedia shows most of the price of flights the same in its owned OTAs, while Priceline and Booking.com operate independently showing different ranges of flight fares. Booking.com flight fares are powered by Kayak, another sister site of Booking.com, so Booking.com operates independently from Priceline.com to show flight fares.

In Booking.com, if you are flying to a place where different airlines are serving flights then Booking.com shows all the flights served by multiple airlines to the same destination in a single click. They show different flight options based on time, carrier and price. The User interface of the Booking.com is quite easier to browse than it’s other competitor and sister websites.

You can also get a recommendation to book flights now or you should wait, based on the prediction of flight fares by Booking.com. They predict when flight fares may increase or if it is the best time to book the flight. It can be viewed by clicking on the price forecast and also show advice to buy or wait.

As the flight search results in Booking.com are powered by its sister website Kayak. They both show the identical results except for the user interface of the website and the name of the website.

In Priceline, another sister company of Booking.com, you can book flights directly through the flight booking portal of Priceline, whereas in Booking.com, it takes you to the website of airlines from where you can complete your reservation process for flights.

Booking.com generally finds the flight at its minimum cost. It always charges lower fare costs up to $9 and $18 less than the average flight fares that are normally available on that day in other websites.

You can always filter the flight fares in Booking.com which makes it easier to find, search, and compare flights. It always helps you to pick the one which best fits your needs. They allow you to choose your flight by selecting the trip type that is a round trip, one way, or multi-city, and you can filter by your departure and arrival cities, on which dates you want to fly and how many numbers of travelers you are looking for.

You can also select what class you’d like to fly in such as economy, business, etc. They also allow you to filter your search by airline, cabin types, number of stops and even for your preferred airport for a layover.

Booking.com clearly shows you in which class your ticket falls into the “basic economy” class in which you can take one carry-on bag and have no seat choice. And they also show the fare for the next higher class, which makes it easier for the user to calculate whether the extra money is worth or not for the added comfort.

Booking.com also tells you the length of a layover of your flight. You can also view what type of in-flight entertainment is offered in the flight you are booking such as an in-seat video player or a mobile streaming service. They even tell you the exact specifications of your seat including the legroom as well as how far from your seat, back-seats are reclined. Well, it becomes easier to choose your desired seats, after all, it is not easier to fly such long flights uncomfortably.

As it saves you money by showing all the cheaper flight fares from different airlines. So this is one of the best flight tickets searching sites to book your ticket to Nepal or anywhere else where you would love to travel.

Pros and Cons of Booking.com:

Pros:

A better user interface, you can easily choose the class on which you’re flying in your flight.
com shows you exact seat specifications so that you can choose the seat in which you feel comfortable to travel.
You can reserve flight tickets from different airlines directly and save money by comparing the best prices.

Cons:

company doesn’t reward you as its competitors such as Expedia.

Related: Send Money to Nepal – Get $25 Cash Back

3. Cheap flights on CheapOair.com

The CheapOair.com is a flight search site owned by Fareportal Inc. CheapOair charges are slightly higher than any other popular OTAs like Expedia and booking.com. But they provide coupon codes for discount offers on various flights. They also offer their credit cards to book flight tickets. If you use the CheapOair credit card to purchase up to $500 in the first 90 days, they provide you with a $50 rebate with no annual fee.

They even give you the option to book now and pay later after 3, 6 or 12 months but there are some criteria to qualify for this option. Surely, the flight tickets on CheapOair are higher in comparison to other websites. Even after including the coupon code discount the flight will still be expensive in CheapOair in comparison to others.

People usually get attracted by discount offers and coupon code, but they don’t think, what might be the original price in airlines. CheapOair gets the benefit of coupon codes and discount offers technique which is used by CheapOair to attract people to its website.

Though CheapOair.com shows mostly higher flight fares, it can stand out from others by showing cheaper flight fare for the last-minute flights and it is useful when booking last-minute flight ticket to Nepal or any location.

Pros and Cons of CheapOair.com:

Pros:

CheapOair prioritizes nonstop flights as well as also prioritizes alternate dates to fly, so you can save money.
It clearly shows prices for itineraries with stops and non-stop flights organized in an easy-to-read chart with airlines detail.
They offer promo code and also provide $50 rebate after users do the $500 purchases in the first 90 days through CheapOair credit card.
CheapOair shows rules for baggage, details on fare rules and also shows alternate date fares with priority.

Cons:

Mostly expensive flight tickets while booking from CheapOair.
The coupon codes and promo codes offered by CheapOair can not make it cheaper than the normal price shown by other popular websites.

4. Cheap flights on Google.com/flights

Google Flights is another flight booking metasearch site offered by Google. It is fast, free of ads and there are no distractions. To search your flight, just enter your departure and arrival airports and date.

After the result is shown, if you want to travel with the lower fare on alternate dates you can target the fare price in price graph and again go to the calendar there you will be shown the dates on which the targeted flight fare is available.

Google flight has a combination of all of the best features of popular flight search sites such as Expedia, Kayak, etc. They also provide an analysis of historical data to help you when it’s the best time to book a flight and tips.

Google flight is one of the fastest flight search sites with easy to use interface. Just enter our departure and arrival cities and dates, and Google Flights will return airfares almost instantly. You can also sort by price, airport, best flights, departure time, arrival time and duration in the Google flights. You can easily see the next day’s flights by just clicking the left and right arrows at the date selector option. All the data of the next flight date loads instantly in Google flights.

Google flights also help you to take regional flights with a cheaper fare. If you are traveling to a place but not sure which city you should travel, then Google flight can show a map of the destination. They will also show you airfares for your selected dates on that map. Google flights will also show you any known delays that may occur and also reasons for those delays and delay predictions.

Google flight also shows which flight fare is best for you, it shows the flight fare in green color for the best deal.

And if you’re not ready to book just now, Google Flights can keep an eye on your selected dates and destination and email you whenever there’s a change in price. You just have to click the option to track prices. To view the flights that you’re tracking, click on tracked prices. They also provide you hotel booking feature along with flight booking, you can select the hotel check-in date and book from it.

If you are planning to visit Nepal during some festivals or to attend any function you can keep track of the flight fare and book when you think it is the best deal.

Pros and Cons of Google Flights:

Pros:

They can show you the price graph for the pricing trends for your route. You can analyze when it can be cheaper to fly.
Google flights offer price tracking service which will send you an email when your flight’s price changes.
You can search with the help of a map to choose cheaper fare if you have flexible dates to travel. They will show you fares displayed all at once on a map with dates. This feature will be helpful if you are going to a place where there are more airports.
You can customize your search with various options and sort the flights as you wish.

Cons:

It can be problematic for people who are unfamiliar with many filters to search and to customize their searches.
For the first time, you will see cheap flights, incase if you are not satisfied with that price and discard browser, next time you will see more expensive rates.

5. Cheap flights on Tripadvisor.com

TripAdvisor is one of the most popular hotel review sites. But now it has become a popular online travel agency (OTA) from where you can review as well as book a hotel and flight tickets.

TripAdvisor is owned by Liberty Media Corporation which also own 20+ other websites which includes Airfarewatchdog, BookingBuddy, Citymaps, FlipKey, GateGuru, Holiday Lettings, Holiday Watchdog, Independent Traveler, Cruise Critic, Family Vacation Critic, Jetsetter, la fourchette, Niumba, OneTime, SeatGuru, SmarterTravel, Viator, Tingo, TravelPod, Tripbod, VacationHomeRentals, and VirtualTourist.

TripAdvisor primarily started as a hotel rating website but now travelers can rate airlines as well as can search for airfare and book flights on TripAdvisor Flights. They allow you to customize the search to help you get the desired results. You can customize the search results by departure time, several stops, the best value, duration, price, airline, time, layovers, etc.

Now TripAdvisor is not only just a place review hotels as it has become a one-stop-shop for all your travel needs from booking a flight to accommodations. You can also book a cruise, vacation packages, car rentals, restaurants and able to do shopping also.

TripAdvisor shows the option of various booking options from different OTAs and you can also view the rating for airlines while booking the flight. They also provide some discount if flight, as well as hotel, is booked together from TripAdvisor using their partner websites such as Expedia.

TripAdvisor shows the flight fares from different online travel agencies and you can compare the deals that fit you and can choose the cheaper one. If you are traveling to Nepal to visit its scenery and natural environment, then you can use TripAdvisor to book a flight as well as property at your desired location in Nepal. Surely, this will save some money for you as well as reserve a hotel too for your comfortable stay in Nepal.

Pros and Cons of TripAdvisor.com:

Pros:

TripAdvisor is fast and reliable to book flight tickets.
They also send you fare alerts and search customization and filters.
The search tool of TripAdvisor can be customized and they also show the rating of airlines whose fare is displayed, so travelers can choose the airlines with a better rating for the better traveling experience.

Cons:

The results displayed by TripAdvisor doesn’t include baggage fees.
TripAdvisor shows itineraries that have a long time of layovers which is not worth the savings.

So these were the flight booking sites and online travel agencies from where you can get a Cheaper flight ticket to Nepal according to your needs. These sites not just provide a cheaper flight fare to Nepal but any location where you want to travel.

Related article: Why you must visit Nepal in 2020?

Best practice to search for cheap flights

There are some ways to book a flight at a cheaper price, and we have listed them here to help you so you can also save some money that you might have to pay to airlines:

Go incognito and Clear Cookies

One of the important things you need to do to find the cheapest flight is by going into incognito mode. It is believed that most of the Online Travel Agency (OTA) websites use cookies to track your behavior and the routes you’re interested in, so they can hike up the price for the route you are choosing to travel.

Though this is not proven a fact, people sometimes worry this might happen to them and may lead to price hikes. If you also think this might happen with you, you can also choose to search via an incognito browser window or you can clear your cookies. So, it is a simple work to save your money and get a cheaper flight by just clearing cookies or cache from your browser or just open an incognito tab before booking a flight.

Be aware of upcharges

Another thing that you may have to look after is the upcharges that you might face while purchasing tickets from some websites. You might have to pay $20 to 45 dollars on top of the ticket price when you book tickets from particular websites.

It is better to do the price comparison on various websites before booking the tickets. Sometimes you might have to pay more through sister companies of popular brands as the price of the same flight can be cheaper in parent company whereas it may be expensive in a sister company.

Prefer the layovers

You might want to have a non-stop flight for fast travel but you might know that nonstop flights are typically more expensive than flights with layovers. So if you want to fly cheaper consider booking a flight with a layover, it will be less expensive than other non-stop flights. It is even better to look for a layover that’s lengthy enough which allows you to leave the airport and travel a bit so you can feel like you did traveling of two places.

Book on Weekdays but not on all weekdays

Never book your flight tickets on weekends, it is most probable that the flight tickets on the weekends are costlier. You might think Friday is the best day to book your flight for your weekends but it is always advisable not to book flights on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

These three days mostly have costliest flight fares in comparison to weekdays. Flight fares mostly go high up based on demand for flights and it can be ridiculously higher in these three days. And other times of the year such as on festivals and events like Christmas, Easter’s day, New Year’s Day or even Summer Vacations, etc based on demand for certain destinations, the flight fares can go up higher.

Not every search engine works the same

It is a sure thing that all search engines will display different results, as they are created differently and have a different focus. You must have to perform a search on multiple websites to get the best deals for you. Most of the Online Travel Agency (OTA) websites don’t show the tickets from the budget carriers because those airlines do not want to pay a booking commission. Whereas some search engines do not list the booking sites which are not available in English.

And some sites only feed prices directly from airlines. Airlines such as AirAsia, Ryanair, or most of the other budget airlines do not show up on large OTA websites like Expedia, Booking.com, Kayak, etc. And various U.S. based booking sites also do not show the foreign airlines that you can see on international OTA sites, so it is always better to have a look at different sites. It is always a chance that you might find better flight fares when comparing different websites.

Search flight fares as a single person

When you are traveling as a group, do not search or buy multiple tickets at a single purchase. It is the chance that airlines might show the highest price for the ticket when the search is done for a group of tickets. If you are traveling with your family, always search for a ticket as an individual or to make sure you’re not paying more you can do both searches in incognito mode. Let’s assume you have a family of three people and you searched for three seats.

Then it is believed that the airline will find three seats together and that fare will be based on the highest ticket price that you will pay. So if each seat has different prices such as $250 for a seat if first person, the second seat is for $300 and the seat of the third person of your family is $400, then the airlines will show up all those tickets as $400 each instead of adding up the individual ticket prices.

This will cost you an additional cost just for searching the seats together in booking sites. Therefore, it is always recommended to search for tickets as a person. And in the checkout process, you can choose your seats and can sit with your family together.

Check for fares in other currencies too

You can also get a somewhat cheaper ticket if If you search for flight tickets in other country’s currency. If your country’s currency is stronger in comparison to others around the world, try to search for flights in a country where the currency is weaker. As an example, if you search for the same flight in USD when it is strong and also on other country’s currency which is currently weak.

There is a chance that you may find a cheaper ticket in a weak currency. This technique might not always work, but it’s no loss in trying something which can save you a few hundred dollars. To save yourself from paying a surcharge while buying a ticket from foreign currency always use a card which doesn’t cost you for paying in foreign currency.

Book flight tickets when it’s the best time

Airline fares will rise when it’s getting closer to the departure date. But there is also a chance to see the drop in airline fares when there is less demand for flights. Mostly, the flight fares are dependent on the demand for flights which can increase or decrease the fare of the flight.

We are not saying to wait until it is a last-minute but don’t do hurry in booking a flight in advance either. It is always best to book your flight around 6 to 8 weeks before your day of the flight, and in case of peak season, it is better to book the tickets before three months of your departure.

Know the baggage fees

You will certainly get some luggage and baggage to take with you for free, in most of the cases, one baggage for personal items. And for each new baggage, you may need to pay a few more dollars as the baggage fees add up in your flight fares. Sometimes, it can be a worse deal to choose a cheap fare which only allows personal items to take with you than a flight ticket which costs $20 more to have a generous luggage allowance. So you should choose wisely which deal is best for you before you book a flight ticket.

Mix Match Airlines

When you book flight tickets from Online Travel Agency websites, they usually show the same airline for your tickets. But you can mix Match your Airlines to book a cheaper ticket. For that, you can use Google flights or other such sites where tickets can be selected manually from different airlines for departure and return.

Common Mistakes to Avoid When Booking a Flight

We are human and as being a human we also do some mistakes, but some mistakes can cost us a lot. But doing a mistake while booking a flight ticket is one of the costly mistakes that can make your budget low for the travel.

So here we have listed some of the common mistakes that anyone may unknowingly do while booking a flight:

Wrong date

One of the most common mistakes you might do when booking a flight is by booking a flight ticket on the current date. How can this be possible if you choose the date on which you want to fly correctly? Most of the flight booking websites set the default date as the current date.

So even after you put in the correct date when you started to browse the flight tickets, it can sometimes change back to default state and you might book the flight for that default date. So when this date shuffle happens you need to start the booking process again.

And if you didn’t look after the date and reserved the flight seat by doing the payment, then you may end up with a flight ticket that is flying the very day. Though you booked a non-flexible, non-refundable flight ticket, there might be an option to change or cancel the flight ticket, but you certainly have to pay some fees at least.

Wrong flight time

Many people get confused with the time of departure also. The easiest mistake that you might do is when the scheduled departure time of flight is midnight, and many people get confused with it if it is midnight or midday? It’s midnight, you might know it, but not everyone. It is a common mistake for a clock that operates on 12 hours. People also make mistakes with 24 hours clock system. When the flight is departing at 1600 it means it will depart at 04:00 pm in the day time, not at 06:00 pm.

Huge difference in flight arrival and hotel check-in time

You have to make sure that you have booked your hotel rooms as per your arrival time at airports, otherwise, you may have to wander around to find a place to spend your time. Though some hotels can take care of your baggage and you may get time to roam the area for a while. But you might have already got tired of flying for a long time and may need a bath to feel refreshed. So to have a comfortable stay at hotels, make sure your hotel check-in time is not too late for your arrival time.

Not considering the international date line

International date line can change your travel experience, suppose if you departed from Australia in flight to the United States on a Sunday morning, you will arrive in Honolulu a few hours earlier in that very same morning. You might do a big mistake if you are not considering the difference in time zones. So after flying from Australia to the USA if you want to go into your hotel directly, you will have to book the hotel at least 5-6 hours before your flight while you were in Australia.

Wrong passenger details

Never enter the wrong information while booking international flights. The information that you fill while you book the flight ticket must be the same as what’s in your passport. If you missed your middle name or to get the expiry date or maybe you entered the incorrect passport number then there’s no probability for you to travel from the flight that you booked with the wrong details.

Limited Baggage allowance

Every airline may set different rules for international baggage allowances that can be often from 30 kilograms, even for economy class flyers or just one or two bags. It also depends upon the class in which you are flying. Some countries only allow 15 to 23 kilograms of check-in luggage but you can usually pay to increase the limit. During the booking of a flight, you can pay for the allowance of extra luggage. And if you will wait until you reach the airport to increase the luggage allowance limit then you surely will have to pay more for that.

Not getting in contact with Travel Provider

When you book a flight ticket, you will receive some follow-up emails and calls from your travel provider. Don’t ignore those emails as they may provide important notices and updates of your flight. Also, don’t forget to check your spam folder in email so that those important messages don’t end up moving towards the trash folder. If you miss such calls and emails, you might miss an update of flight time and other important messages.

Confusion with direct and nonstop flights

Airlines often provide nonstop flights with some costlier fare as they are fast and take less time to reach the destination. And don’t get confused between direct and non-stop flights. Non-stop is fast and has no stops in between. Whereas the direct flight may have a few stops on the way to drop off and pick up passengers. If your traveling time is wasteful then book non-stop flight by paying more but if you don’t want to pay the extra fare for a nonstop flight, then normal flights with few stops can save you money.

Not booking with the airline

Another mistake you can do is by not booking your flight ticket directly from the airline’s website. As there are now dozens of flight booking websites that help you book your flight tickets with the best possible airfare prices. But when you book from these websites, they may charge you extra money for the service they provided to book you a flight ticket. And it is always better to trust an authentic airline’s website than to trust a third-party service to book flight tickets online, certainly, it will save you from any chance of being left alone at the airport.

Not considering the Hidden Costs

People always want to get a cheaper price for the flight ticket but they do not look after the hidden costs that come along with the booked ticket. These hidden costs are added to the flight fare when we try to complete the payment process. You will surely choose the flight fare that is shown cheapest and after selecting it, the OTA website may add other hidden costs. The hidden costs are generally the service tax, inflight meal charges, transaction costs, extra baggage charges and many others that are only shown when you click for the payout option.

Do you have any best experienced while searching for cheap flights? Please share your experience from the comment box below: