The question I get most from friends back home isn’t where to go, it’s how to start. After three years of flying out of Changi on whatever budget carrier is running a sale, the answer is boring: you check three things, in a specific order, and you do it before you even open a hotel tab.
The Price View, Not the First Price
First thing I do is open the flight search I keep in a tab and set it to a whole month, not a fixed date. A Tuesday departure from Singapore to Bangkok in late September runs about SGD 89 one-way on AirAsia, while the same route on a Friday morning jumps to SGD 145, and that spread of roughly 60 percent repeats itself on almost every route I book.
The mistake beginners make is taking the first number they see, so I always run the same search across three different airlines, because Scoot and Jetstar and AirAsia price the identical corridor completely differently depending on the season. For a longer hop, say Singapore to Bali, I’ve paid as little as SGD 118 in November and watched the same seat hit SGD 230 the week before Christmas, so the month view matters more than the airline choice.
You can do all of this in one sitting if you use something like Kupi.com flight search for Singapore, which bundles the low-cost carriers into one calendar grid instead of making you click through five separate sites.
The Bag That Costs More Than the Seat
Here’s where most people get burned, and it is almost always the bag. Scoot’s base fare includes nothing but the clothes on your back, a personal item that fits under the seat, and a 7 kg limit that the gate staff will weigh without apology.
I carry a 40-litre backpack that weighs 6.2 kg empty of everything but my laptop and a change of clothes, which means I’m constantly rearranging at the airport to shove my power bank into my jacket pocket. Add a checked bag to that same SGD 89 Bangkok ticket and you’re looking at SGD 35 extra per leg, which is 40 percent of the fare, so the real question is whether you can do the trip in a backpack at all.
- Weigh your bag at home on a luggage scale, because the airport scale at Changi costs you time and possibly a repack.
- Check the carry-on dimensions in centimetres, not just the weight, since Scoot’s 54 x 38 x 23 cm limit is tighter than AirAsia’s.
- Compare the add-on price before you book, because you buy bags cheaper at the time of booking than at check-in.
- Read the fare rules for the exact weight, since some airlines allow 10 kg on certain routes and 7 kg on others.
- Factor in the surcharge for paying at the gate, which can double the bag fee.
The Timing, The Layover, The Reality
Last thing I check is the time of day, because a 6am departure from Changi means you’re at the airport by 4am, which is fine if you live in the east side but miserable if you’re coming from Jurong. A bit under two hours covers the Singapore to Kuala Lumpur hop, but the early flight saves you SGD 40 against the noon departure, and I’ve done the 3am wait in the terminal more times than I care to count.
For longer haul, I look at the total journey time and not just the base fare, since a flight with a 14-hour layover in Ho Chi Minh City might save you SGD 80 but costs you a hotel night at SGD 50 anyway. The flight search I keep in a tab has a price alert feature that emails me when a route drops below a threshold I set, and that has saved me real money on the Singapore to Perth route, which I’ve seen fall from SGD 210 to SGD 160. That last SGD 50 is the difference between a good trip and a great one, so it’s worth the ten minutes to set the alert and wait, even if you have to book two months out. I usually end up comparing the final options on Kupi.com one last time before I commit, just to make sure I haven’t missed a cheaper date.
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