Cheap flights to
Portugal

With as much time as we have spent watching the cost of plane tickets rise and fall, we’ve noticed some patterns. One such pattern is that there’s a sweet spot before a flight when airfare tends to be the cheapest. It’s 1-3 months ahead of a domestic trip and 2-8 months ahead of an international one. We call this the Goldilocks Window, and it’s when we suggest most people plan to buy their tickets.

There are, however, situations that can require even more advance planning than the Goldilocks Window. If your travel dates are set in stone, or you’re flying during peak season or over a major holiday, plan to add a couple of months to the equation. And, by all means, book your flights before airlines raise prices at the last minute—which they typically do 21, 14, and 7 days ahead of departure.

One of our favorite travel hacks is something we call the Greek Islands Trick. It’s not reserved for the Greek Islands, either—it’s just a handy nickname for a trick that works on destinations all over the world. The idea is that you look for the cheapest long-haul flight you can find that will get you relatively close to where you really want to be. Then, you look for a separate flight, train, or boat that will close the gap. This two-step dance does require a little more attention to detail in the planning stages, but the savings can be big.

Let’s say you’re in the New York area and you’re looking for a cheap flight to Lisbon. You might think that a nonstop flight for $550 roundtrip seems like a decent deal, but if you zoom out just a bit on the map, you may notice we’ve found a killer deal on roundtrip flights from NYC to Madrid for only $215. Couple that with a $40 roundtrip flight from Madrid to Lisbon, and you’ve just saved yourself a few hundred bucks.

This tip is a bit like the mirror image of the Greek Islands Trick. Instead of looking for the cheapest airport to fly into, you’re looking for the cheapest airport to fly out of. You may already be in the habit of checking the flight options from a few airports close to home, and that’s a great start—but sometimes the best deal that departs from an airport halfway across the country is still going to save you money overall.

Flights from Los Angeles to Lisbon may come in at around $900 roundtrip, for example. Flights from New York to Lisbon, by contrast, can be as low as $300. This means that even when you add a $200-300 flight from LA to NYC, you’re still saving money. It never hurts to check out the deals on flights from other airports, both near and far.

Being flexible when planning a trip is one of the best ways to save money. Rather than going the standard route of blocking off vacation time first and checking out airfare second, try looking at airfare first. You may find an amazing deal on flights that are outside the time you would have been looking if you’d narrowed your dates first. More generally, aiming for the shoulder seasons rather than the peak season is a great start to budget-friendly travel.

Not everyone has the luxury of that kind of flexibility, though, with school and work schedules dictating when many people can get away. If that sounds like you, there are still a few things you can try to save a little on airfare. First, if you’re stuck traveling in the summer high season, look at fares in the first two weeks of June and the last two weeks of August, which are among the cheapest weeks to fly during the summer. Second, avoid flying on the days that are traditionally more expensive (Fridays and Sundays). Third, try to fly on the days that tend to be cheaper (Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Saturdays).

Most people don’t have the time to spend scouring the internet for cheaper airfare, but that doesn’t mean you’re stuck paying higher prices. You can sign up for fare alerts for whatever trip you’re looking at. Then, when the price drops into the range you want, you’ll get an email notification that it’s time to buy. Just remember you’ll need to set up multiple alerts if you’re looking at multiple trips. Or, you can hand over the whole project to a team that does this full-time by joining Going.

The main international gateway in Portugal is Lisbon (LIS), and that’s where we find most of the deals on flights. But we also find great deals and mistake fares on flights to Madeira (FNC), Faro (FAO), Porto (OPO), and Terceira Island (TER) in the Azores. In some cases, the best deals will be on flights that include a layover. But, since we find thousands of deals on flights to Portugal each year, there are often unbelievably low fares on nonstop flights in the mix, too.