The Best Tools for Tracking Flight Prices

You do not need five flight trackers. You need two, set up properly.\n\nGoogle Flights is the backbone. Its calendar view and price graph tell you what normal looks like for a route, which is the single most useful piece of information you can have. Set a tracked route rather than a tracked date and you will get alerted when anything in the range moves.\n\nFor exploring, the map view is better than any search box. Put SAN in the origin, leave the destination blank, and let the prices suggest the trip.\n\nBeyond that, an airline app or two for the carriers that actually fly your routes — Southwest fares never show in most search engines, and Alaska runs sales that never get syndicated.\n\nAnd then there is us. The reason alerts like ours exist is that most people will not check a price graph every morning. That is fine. Somebody should, though.