Find cheap flights

Jeddah (JED) is the usual Umrah gateway: roughly 1 to 1.5 hours by road to Makkah, far more flights, and generally cheaper fares.

Madinah (MED) is worth checking if you intend to visit Madinah anyway. Fly into Madinah, do your ziyarat, enter Ihram at Dhul Hulayfah, then take the Haramain train down to Makkah and fly home from Jeddah.

An open-jaw booking (into MED, out of JED) is often barely more expensive than a return and saves you a whole backtrack. Google Flights handles multi-city well.

• Avoid Ramadan — especially the last ten nights — and the Hajj period. Prices can multiply several times over.
• The quietest, cheapest windows are typically the weeks right after Hajj, and the months between Ramadan and Hajj season.
• Midweek departures beat weekends almost everywhere.
• Booking roughly 2 to 4 months ahead usually lands better than last-minute, though Umrah routes behave less predictably than leisure routes.

Agency Umrah packages bundle visa, flights, hotel and transfers. They are convenient, and for first-timers or elderly travellers that convenience is worth real money.

But price the parts separately before you commit. Now that Saudi tourist e-visas permit Umrah for many nationalities, booking flights and a hotel yourself is frequently cheaper — sometimes substantially — and gives you control over hotel distance from the Haram, which matters more than almost anything else on the trip.

A headline fare with no checked bag is not cheap once you add a bag each way, and Umrah travellers almost always come home heavier — Zamzam, dates, gifts, prayer mats. Compare the total including baggage, not the lead price. Note that Zamzam is normally handled separately from your baggage allowance; check your airline's current rule before you buy a container.