The Best Way to Find More Sustainable Flights Right Now (Tips from a Frequent Flyer)
In 2026, the best way to find more sustainable flights is to book your flights with BookBetter.
Over the years, I’ve written about lots of ways to reduce the climate impact of travel, from using travel carbon calculators, to whether you should buy carbon offsets for your flights. I even detailed the embarrassing process of calculating my carbon emissions from a year’s worth of flights as a full-time travel writer.
But if you only change one thing about the way you fly, I believe using BookBetter is the most impactful change. (After replacing flights with trains, whenever possible, of course. But every traveler knows that’s not a realistic solution for many trips.)
BookBetter is a flight search engine, but also so much more than that. They transparently show the true climate impact of every flight option, and let you add certified Sustainable Aviation Fuel to any booking.
It’s changed how I book every trip, and given me hope for a future with genuinely sustainable aviation, instead of flight shaming and guilt.
As a proud BookBetter ambassador (unofficial title, mostly I’m just obsessed with them), I’ve spent more than six hours interviewing the founders and many more testing the platform myself.
Below are all my pro tips for getting the most out of it, including a few quirks to know before you start searching, and FAQ answers. (Plus a few bonus tips for travel in general. They just come spilling out of me whenever I start writing.)
What is BookBetter?
They’re a new, European start-up that makes it easy to find the lowest-emission option for every flight you take.
You can use the platform to book the same flights you could buy elsewhere, but they sort your search results by climate impact, and let you buy certified Sustainable Aviation Fuel. That’s a simple change that reduces the greenhouse gas emissions of your flights by 80%, and it drives me crazy that no one talks about it.
BookBetter takes tons of sustainability factors into account that none of us have time to calculate on our own. (From the time of day of your flight and the impact of contrails, to the efficiency of the airplane’s engine, to the routing.)
Who owns BookBetter?
If “start-up” makes you think over-funded tech bros who don’t care about other people, BookBetter is the opposite of that. This is an independent team of 6 people who believe in the power of making sustainable travel options easily accessible.
They’re based in Brussels, and the company is currently self-funded by their two founders, Nicolas and Louis, who both have years of experience in sustainable aviation. (Although if you’re a benevolent billionaire / millionaire, I bet they’d be open to some extra funding so they can grow faster.)
In the meantime, the BookBetter website is a labor of love, which means it isn’t always as slick as Google Flights or Kayak, with their hundreds of employees and bottomless pockets. (Here’s a quick video I made on that topic.)
I’ve spent hours on the phone with both founders. They’re kind, caring, clearly experts on aviation sustainability, and they’re working really hard to make a difference.
They also asked me for your feedback! If you see anything that needs to be improved, let me know and I’ll pass it along. (Trust me, it’s not easy to build a website by yourself.)
But I promise it’s worth it, because every flight booked on BookBetter makes a difference! That’s why I wrote this guide to help smooth out the process so you can choose more climate-friendly travel options.
Is it cheaper?
No, but it’s not more expensive either.
I’ve gotten this question often on my social media posts about BookBetter. To be clear, finding cheap flights is not the point here; finding more sustainable flights is. But you can still use my discount code to save a bit!
I’ve compared flight prices on Google Flights vs. Kayak vs. BookBetter for plenty of routes. The prices might seem different, but they’re not.
Any price difference you’ll see is from the currency conversion (BookBetter is in Euros, more about that below, but it’s no problem) and from the amount of Sustainable Aviation Fuel that you choose to add (more about that below, too).
Tip:
If you’re looking for cheaper flights, sign up for a flight alert service. When they send you a deal you want to book, you can often still take that flight info and book it through BookBetter.
Start your search elsewhere, BUY your flight on BookBetter.
I find this is the easiest way to use BookBetter, especially if you’re still skeptical about the pricing:
- Do your initial flight search on whatever site you normally use, whether that’s Google Flights, Kayak, a specific airline website, or a deal your favorite flight alert tool sent you.
- Find the exact flight you want, or at least your top choices. (Which airports you want to fly to and from, and the airline and time of the flight you want.)
- Go to BookBetter to compare the climate impact of your top choice flights. If one has a lower climate impact than another, maybe it’s worth switching.
- As long as you make the final booking on BookBetter, it’s all good. (Any booking through BookBetter sends a message in support of sustainable flight options.)
Don’t give up on your city.
Sometimes entering a variation of a city name will cause the site to tell you it doesn’t exist. Don’t believe it.
For example, the results told me there were ZERO flights available from “New York City” to London, which of course made no sense. It turns out I needed to type in “New York.”
Not a big deal, I just want to make sure you don’t get scared away by these little glitches.
This is an issue I’ve mentioned to the BookBetter team. They’re working on fixing it.
Book in Euros, NOT your local currency.
Currently, BookBetter doesn’t have an option to change the currency you see prices in, or to pay in your local currency. (Unless your local currency is Euros!) But that’s fine!
Two important steps to make sure you don’t overpay:
- Pay for your flight in euros (do NOT convert to your local currency).
- Use a credit card that does NOT charge a foreign transaction fee.
Here’s why:
- When you choose your home currency, the platform charges a 3.75% fee to convert to USD. (And I think it’s the same fee for any currency.) NOTE: This fee does not go to BookBetter; they’re not choosing to make flights more expensive for non-Europeans. It’s a fee imposed by the credit card processor (Stripe) and they can’t remove it.
- If your credit card charges a foreign transaction fee, that would also add about 3% when you pay in euros.
So, for example, if I’d booked my flight from Mexico City in my local currency, it would have charged me $529, instead of $509. (That’s what my card converted it to when I chose Euros, and let it do the conversion.)
This flight would have cost $529 if I’d accepted currency conversion…- Instead, letting my credit card do the conversion, I paid $509.
Travel Tip:
This advice applies to any purchases you make abroad. (Or online, if it’s in a different currency.)
Whenever you’re abroad and a store asks if you want your card charged in your currency or the local currency, always choose the local currency! Your credit card will give you a better conversion rate and save you money.
The one exception is if you don’t have a “no foreign transaction fee” card. (And if you’re traveling, you definitely should have one.) More on that coming soon in another post.
Credit Card Tip:
This is the “gold” credit card I use for flights and restaurants, which earns me lots of valuable travel points and doesn’t charge a foreign transaction fee.
If you’re not there yet in the points game, there are plenty of cards without foreign fees that don’t have annual fees, either. Capital One has lots, or the new Bilt Blue card is a great beginner option with no annuel fee.
Add your airline loyalty number LATER. (+ Points travel tip!)
If you collect airline loyalty points (and there’s no reason not to), you’ll probably notice that BookBetter doesn’t give you a space to input your loyalty number when booking. It’s fine though, you can do it later!
When BookBetter sends your flight confirmation email, just take the confirmation number from the email, log into the airline’s website and use the confirmation code to look up your flight and add it to your profile.
That way you’ll get your points.
Travel Points Tip:
Airline loyalty points are never the most valuable travel points to collect (compared with flexible credit card points), but they’re still free, and you can earn both at the same time, so there’s no reason not to make an account and take them.
>> See my guide to points and miles travel for simple beginner tips (and some advanced ones), including FREE ways to get extra points.
(Spoiler: Take 2 minutes to make a Bilt account right now, and connect any credit card and your Lyft account. It’s the most valuable points currency there is, and you can earn it on top of credit card points.)
Pack lighter & buy SAF instead
If you don’t love the idea of paying more for your flight in order to support Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF), think of it this way: The price of adding 100% SAF for your flight is comparable to upgrading from basic economy to regular economy on a flight to Europe.
And no, that “upgrade” doesn’t get you Champagne or a bigger seat; it mostly gets you a checked bag, and sometimes flexibility to change your ticket.
So if you’re choosing between one or the other, buy SAF and skip the checked bag!
>> Choosing SAF contributes to a better climate, and I always say packing light contributes to a better trip, so it’s the best of both worlds! (I’ve enjoyed many multi-week trips to Europe in winter with just a carry-on, so I’m speaking from experience here.)
Why can’t you choose your seat or luggage?
Right now, for most flights on BookBetter, you have to choose your seat and add extra luggage later on the airline website.
Just follow the same process as above to add your airline loyalty number to your booking. You can login to the airline’s website once and do all of these things at the same time. (Add your loyalty number, choose your seat and add any baggage.)
Integrating this directly on the BookBetter website is another improvement the team is working on, but each airline is a separate battle they have to fight, so it takes some time. (And I’d rather they focus on sustainability, since that’s what makes BookBetter special. Details like bags and seats are easy for us travelers to fix later, anyway.)
You can fly anywhere. Almost.
To clarify: The BookBetter team is based in Europe, but you can use the site to book flights anywhere in the world. The first flight I booked with them was Mexico City to Boston.
They have almost every airline in the world in their search results.
… except small towns.
The main exception I’ve found to BookBetter letting you buy flights anywhere is that the platform often doesn’t display flights into small airports.
I asked the team about this and they said the reason is that when you search an uncommon route, if it doesn’t have climate impact information available for that route, it won’t offer it.
They’re working on fixing this glitch. (As of May 2026.) So I’ll update this when it’s improved. But for now, unfortunately, you might not be able to buy flights to rural airports on BookBetter. If you try and find that you can, please let me know!
Don’t forget the flight discount!
Remember, the point of using BookBetter is not to find cheaper flights, as lots of people have asked on my Instagram posts about them. The point is to find more sustainable flights.
BUT, you can use my discount code below to save 10 euros on your flight! (The discount will be converted to whatever currency you pay in, but if you’ve read this whole post, you know it’s a better deal for you to pay in euros, anyway.)
Other questions?
Did I miss anything? If you’ve booked a flight with BookBetter, I’d love to hear how your experience was. I honestly think it’s the most exciting new sustainable travel company I’ve come across in a long time, so I hope if you’ve read this you’re willing to give it a try.
And don’t forget to stay in touch! Drop your email below and get on my newsletter list for updates and exclusive content. I’ll also send you one of my favorite sustainable travel freebies as a welcome. 🙂
