Instructions

1. Many Internet-based travel search engines allow you to see fares to multiple destinations from a single airport or region. Simply plug in your departure airport or city and the travel search engine will look for the lowest fares to all destinations. On some sites, you can sort the results by dollar amount, airline, price per mile and other factors; others allow you to plug in your departure airport and see current deals under a certain dollar amount to many destinations. This type of search is a good way to get a general overview of the current fares to the destinations you are considering. Not all of these sites allow you to book, but they can give you an idea of the fares you can expect when you are ready to book on another site.
2. If you want to plan a trip that includes stopovers at multiple destinations rather than a simple round-trip between two destinations, book a multi-segment trip. Most booking engines and airline websites will allow you this option; simply choose “Multi-Segment” and input your destination airports and the dates you want to fly. Multi-segment trips do not necessarily cost more than simple round trips—it all depends on the fare rules, which vary widely.
3. Many websites let you search for the best fare to a given destination within a range of dates. The results are typically sorted by fare and airline, and you can see the fare rules for each fare and the dates the fare is actually available.
4. If you know what airline you want to fly on, go to its website and select “Multi-Segment” on the flight booking page. Most airlines allow you to book multi-segment tickets with three or more stops, and these fares are not always more expensive than regular round-trip tickets. This option usually requires you to input specific dates for each segment; to search for fares using flexible dates, most airlines require you to book a round-trip or one-way fare.
5. Online travel agencies offer users the option of searching for multi-segment fares. When you search for multi-segment fares on third-party sites, you will get results for multiple airlines, which can help you find lower fares than you will see when searching on a single airline’s website.