Rome for $364: Cheap travel destinations for Aussies in 2020

The silly season has been and gone, and your wallet is probably a little worse for wear.

But there’s no reason you can’t be thinking about your next travel destination already – and, in fact, planning ahead will mean you can probably save a good amount on your flights.

According to flight deals service Dollar Flight Club, which claims to help members save up to 90 per cent or US $500 (AU $727) on flight fares, you can jetset around the world for a fraction of the price – if you know how to spot a good deal.

Jumping on some seriously cheap fares can get you across the world to places like Copenhagen or Barcelona for well under $500 – for a return trip.

Dollar Flight Club has made predictions about the best deals available this year, and revealed the cheapest 20 trending holiday destinations for 2020 based on one billion data points:

1. Bogota, Columbia: $175 roundtrip (cheapest during March-May 2020)

2. San Jose, Costa Rica: $205 roundtrip (cheapest during March-June 2020)

3. Vancouver, Canada: $218 roundtrip (cheapest during May-August 2020)

4. Copenhagen, Denmark: $351 roundtrip (cheapest during May-August 2020)

5. Barcelona, Spain: $353 roundtrip (cheapest during October-December 2020

6. Rome, Italy: $364 roundtrip (cheapest during July-October 2020)

7. Paris, France: $404 roundtrip (cheapest during April-July 2020)

8. Helsinki, Finland: $417 roundtrip (cheapest during September-October 2020)

9. Bali, Indonesia: $435 roundtrip (cheapest during August-December 2020)

10. Mykonos, Greece: $445 roundtrip (cheapest during August-October 2020)

11. Marrakech, Morocco: $445 roundtrip (cheapest during February-March 2020)

12. Tokyo, Japan: $459 roundtrip (cheapest during February-May 2020)

13. Buenos Aires, Argentina: $495 roundtrip (cheapest during September-November 2020)

14. Dubrovnik, Croatia: $505 roundtrip (cheapest during April-July 2020)

15. Podgorica, Montenegro: $513 roundtrip (cheapest during May-August 2020)

16. Dubai, United Arab Emirates: $519 roundtrip (cheapest during January-March 2020)

17. Cape Town, South Africa: $525 roundtrip (cheapest during February-April 2020)

18. Ljubljana, Slovenia: $535 roundtrip (cheapest during May-June 2020)

19. Santiago, Chile: $555 roundtrip (cheapest during May-September 2020

20. Male, Maldives: $612 roundtrip (cheapest during June-September 2020)

The above prices are all in Australian dollars and based on Australian flight data. The pricing predictions are averaged from Australia’s major airports, i.e. Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth airports.

That doesn’t look right – why are these fares so cheap?

Dollar Flight Club, much like Scott’s Cheap Flights, Airfare Watchdog or Secret Flying, exploits something called ‘mistake fares’, where airlines make a pricing mistake when listing a flight.

They can happen due to a range of reasons, including human error, currency conversion miscalculations, scratching out fuel surcharges and fees, and the fact that it’s just too time-consuming for airlines to scope out and correct each mistake.

While you could scour the internet and stumble across them yourself, some flight deals websites work to expose these mistake fares, with teams of people dedicated to scouring the net to finding them.

How do I hop on these fares?

Dollar Flight Club is an email or app subscription service, and sends you alerts every time there’s a good deal going about flights leaving your designated departure airport.

“Members just need to pick their departure airport, watch for email/app alerts, and book that dream vacation,” Dollar Flight Club states on their website.

When you sign up, you can choose either a free plan, Premium plan or a Premium Plus plan. You can try the latter two for 14 days for free.

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