How to save 20% on airfare — if you don’t mind taking some risks

cnbc.com:

There's a surefire way to save money on plane tickets — but those savings may not be worth it for some travelers, depending on their tolerance for certain headaches.

The money-saving strategy likely doesn't come as a surprise: Booking a flight with one or multiple stops is generally less expensive than choosing a non-stop option. The average discount for doing so can be substantial, around 20%, according to Google Flights data on domestic flights for the past five years.

Round-trip domestic flights cost $293 in August, on average, according to Hopper. A 20% discount on that average fare amounts to roughly $59.

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The Google analysis calls the willingness to take a layover «one of your best bets to save money when you fly.»

«That's largely because there are just more ways to get from Point A to Point B with a stop in between,» according to James Byers, group product manager for Google Flights.

Travelers may feel the impulse or have the need to trim travel budgets as airfare and other trip costs have become more expensive. Costs for airfare, hotels and rental cars fell in July relative to a year earlier, but are still up compared to pre-pandemic levels — by double-digit percentages, in some cases, according to federal data.

Searches for «cheapest airline tickets» swelled by 240% in the U.S. between April and August this year relative to the prior four-month period, fromNovember 2021 to March 2022, according to Google.

But the savings travelers get from layovers come with tradeoffs —ones travelers may feel more