How to find the cheapest flights with Skyscanner?
Those who love to travel would go at any time. The problem is that many times the cost of the plane ticket is too high and so we end up giving up the dream trip.
Fortunately, in recent years, thanks to the Internet, exceptional tools have emerged that allow you to find low-cost flights even for those with less experience.
However, there are really many sites that offer flights at the lowest price and it is not easy to choose the best and above all the most reliable.
In this article I will tell you what I think is the best flight price comparison tool and the tool I use the most to find cheap airline tickets: Skyscanner.
So let's see in detail what Skyscanner is, what are the main functions and how to use it to book airline tickets and find the most convenient offer. You will also find my personal method and a video tutorial to harness the power of Skyscanner.
What is Skyscanner?
Skyscanner is a search and price comparison engine for flights, hotels and car rentals that allows you to find the cheapest deal.
Simply put, Skyscanner compares prices among various online agencies and airlines, both domestic and low cost, and offers the most affordable fares and the best flights. Once you have found the lowest price, all you have to do is choose where to buy, among the OTAs (Online Travel Agencies) or directly on the airline's website.
In fact, an important feature of Skyscanner to keep in mind is that the site is a search engine and price aggregator, it does not deal with the direct sale, but sends you back to the portal where you can complete the purchase.
So, instead of searching all the sites, Skyscanner does it for you.
Among the various airline ticket search engines, Skyscanner is the best to find the cheapest flight, it has the advantage of being simple to use and very intuitive and at the same time offers many tools and functions to perform searches.
Among the various options, the most important are the function "Everywhere" and "Cheapest month", which, as we will see better later, allows us to make a more detailed research to find very low prices and the so dreamed "Error rate".
Finally Skyscanner also allows us to search for hotel and car rental deals, thanks to an algorithm capable of finding the lowest price among the best sites in the industry.
How Skyscanner works
Let's see what Skyscanner offers, the functions it offers and how we can use it to find the cheapest flight.
In the foreground we have the search modules and immediately after that we find some suggestions that Skyscanner offers us based on the research we have done previously. It then offers us some of the best deals.
But let's focus on the search form to understand how to use it.
First we can choose between a "Round Trip","One Way" or "Multiple Destinations"flight ,the latter being a perfect function to create alternative itineraries with intermediate stops. In practice, it can be useful to search for so-called Open Jaw flights.
Then you have to type in the starting point:we can choose a city (e.g. Rome), an airport (e.g. Rome Fiumicino) or a whole country.
As destination we can enter a city, a country or Everywhere, i.e. the whole world, from the cheapest to the most expensive destination.
We can only search for direct flights and it is possible to include nearby airports, so Skyscanner compares prices between flights departing from or arriving to all airports located within 100 km of the city you have selected.
Date:you can choose exact dates, if you have special needs. If you don't know when to go, you can choose "Whole month" or "Cheapest month",so you will have a better overview of the lowest offers and it will be easier for you to search for low cost flights.
Thanks to the "the whole month"you will be able to understand which is the cheapest day to reach your destination and save on the cost of airfare.
Finally, you must choose the class of travel, the number of passengers and if there are children.
By clicking on the green button Searchflightsyou will get a list of flights with the lowest fare, we will see later how to view and filter the various results and then proceed to buy the lowest and most suitable air ticket for our particular needs.
These are the basic functions of Skyscanner, now let's see how to use the advanced tools offered by the most famous search portal for low cost flights.
Destination Everywhere function
Skyskanner's "Destination Everywhere" function is perfect if you are looking for inspiration and a cheap flight to any destination in the world. In fact, you will get a list of the most convenient destinations with the lowest price and sorted by country. Just click on the country you are interested in to see the fares for each city.
To select this feature, simply leave the destination field blank and the Everywhere option will be activated automatically.
This is the best method to find real bargains, thanks to the search for the cheapest countries you will be able to find real-time offers and if you are lucky even special fares like Price Errors.
Find the cheapest month
If you have a lot of flexibility when it comes to choosing the travel period, the best thing to do is to search for the cheapest flight of the month to the destination you want to visit.
In the date field, you will need to select the full month and then the most convenient month.
If you then combine the two functions we have just seen, "Everywhere" and the most convenient month, you will find really incredible low cost offers.
Search for flights: calendar function
From the "All month" search we can take advantage of the calendar function.
Once you have defined your travel details, clicking on the search button will open a new screen with the fares for each day of the month you have selected.
You will then see an actual calendar with the best deal for each day, the lowest price will be highlighted in green and the highest in red. If you do not see any rates but find the magnifying glass symbol, it means that the price is not up to date for that day and should be revised.
Alternatively, you can choose to display the costs through the graph by clicking on the "Graph" tab next to "Calendar".
Then choose the days you prefer and click on "Show Flights" to view the search results.
Search Results
Once you have selected all the available options, you must analyze the results proposed by Skyscanner.
You will have a series of flights that you can view in order of price, best or quickest. This will make it easier for you to choose the flight that best suits your needs.
You can filter your search using the left sidebar, selecting different parameters such as number of stopovers, departure times, trip duration or airlines.
Flexibility is the key to get a flight at the lowest cost, so the more filters you insert, the more you will pay for the trip.
Skyscanner analyzes the search in real time and suggests any date changes to get even lower prices. For example, it might indicate that leaving the day before or the day after would save money.
Book: View Offer
Once you have analyzed the results and chosen the best deal for you, you are ready to buy.
As I told you, skyscanner does not sell airline tickets but is just a search engine. This means that you will have to buy the flight on the airline's website or on several online agencies, such as Expedia, Edreams or other less known ones.
Then clicking on View offerwill open a window where you can choose the booking site.
Obviously here you will have to make all the necessary ratings, as I also explain in the guide. Save flight, and select the most reliable portal where to buy the air ticket. In any case, once you have chosen the site for purchase, make a simulation and get to the payment, making sure you have not applied additional costs, unfortunately on some sites it can happen.
Find low cost flights with Skyscanner: my method
STEP 1: BASIC SEARCH
I start the standard round-trip searches for the destination I have chosen. Then I select the departure point, the destination and choose the period.
For example: from Rome to Bali in January.
I sign the lowest prices I have found and try to beat them with alternative flights and techniques.
STEP 2: SEARCH FOR SPAIN
In the second step, instead of searching from Rome, I try to search from all over Spain and see if I find flights from other Spanish cities at a better cost.
For example, to go to Thailand I found a much cheaper flight with Qatar departing from Pisa instead of Rome, with a saving of more than 150 €.
STEP 3: SEARCH FROM OTHER COUNTRIES
I try to look for alternative departures by selecting other countries as a starting point, easily accessible from Spain with low-cost flights. Then, typing France, for example, I search for all flights departing from any French city and see if I can get an even lower total airfare cost.
For example, for Thailand you can often find excellent deals from Austria.
STEP 4: ALTERNATIVE ROUTE
I try to create an alternative route by searching for one-way flights to other countries near my destination using the "Anywhere" function.
For example, again when searching for flights to Bali, I was able to find low prices for destinations such as Singapore, Kuala Lumpur or Bangkok. At this point I can reach my final destination with a low cost flight with the advantage of saving on the total price and the opportunity to see more countries, I practically get two vacations for the price of one.
So, in summary:
- Start with a basic search from A to BA/R.
- From all over Spain
- From other countries
- To other countries
- Just go anywhere
Below you can watch the video tutorial with my personal method explained in detail.
Skyscanner Review
We have seen how Skyscanner works and how I use it to find low cost flights and save on airline tickets.
Skyscanner is in my opinion the best among the price comparators, as I said, it is very simple to use but offers many features.
I have read some reviews from people who did not receive assistance after buying the flight.
Warning:I repeat, Skyscanner is only an aggregator of low cost flights, hotels and rental cars and helps you find the best deal for your trip. So you will not book with them but make the purchase on the sales portal of your choice.
Therefore, Skyscanner will not be able to access the reservations, but you will have to contact the airline or the site where you bought the ticket.
However, the telephone numbers of airlines around the world are present on the Skyscanner website.
Conclusions
In this article we have seen how easy it is to get cheap flights with Skyscanner. Obviously knowing how to use search engines is not enough to find the best deal, there are many tricks and strategies that you should know.
To start with I recommend you to read the article: How to find cheap flights, where I have listed 17 techniques that will help you find the best deal.
If, on the other hand, you want to become super experts, I have created an advanced guide with techniques and strategies used by more experienced travelers: the guide is called Save Flightand to learn more, I invite you to visitthis page.
Before I say goodbye I ask you a favor, it took me a long time to write this guide on skyscanner.
I am sure you will find it very useful and I hope you can find the best deals and travel a lot.
I ask you if you can share this guide with the buttons you find at the end of the article. If you have any questions, feel free to ask me, write me privately or comment on the article.
