A flight search can be done by going through the discount sites one by one, or you can use a service like SideStep to search all of them at one time. You really have to pay attention to what comes up though, as sometimes savings are not worth what they might seem. If you cannot choose your own days, and you cannot be flexible about when you leave, a cheaper ticket is not going to do you much good. However, if you find something in your flight search a day after you wanted to leave, and you can swing that, you have just found a deal.
Getting a better deal on airline tickets may involve taking a flight with more stopovers than a higher priced one. There are times when a flight is one way with one stop, or no stops, but a less expensive version might stop in three different cities along the way. Most do not like that many stopovers because they feel that ups the chances of lost luggage and takes too long. However, if you do not mind that too much, and you find a cheaper ticket through a flight search with many stops, take it if the savings seem to be worth the extra hassle.
Keep in mind when you do flight searches that the day of week does matter as well as the timing. Looking for flights as early as possible is going to bring up the cheapest air travel deals for you to select from. If you wait until a week before you have to go, your flight search is going to yield very few deals. It also depends on the day of the week you choose to search. Some say that Wednesday night is when many cheaper flight seats open up, so you may want to look then, or first thing on Thursday morning to see what type of deals you can find. Spending a little time searching for great deals can save you anywhere from fifty dollars to two hundred fifty dollars.