How to book a flight using the Skyscanner desktop website

Whether you’re a novice traveler, an aspiring travel hacker, or a savvy Thrifty Traveler Premium subscriber, you’ve likely heard of Skyscanner.

Of all the go-to flight search engines out there, Skyscanner is among the most popular. In the best of times, it’s capable of shaving $30 to $100 or even more off the price of your flight.

But what, exactly, is Skyscanner? How does it manage to provide some of the cheapest flights to book? And is it all it’s cracked up to be? Read on to find out.

What is Skyscanner Flight?

Skyscanner is an online booking website that allows you to easily find cheap flights anywhere in the world. Easily find great hotels to accommodate your gang and hire transport to get around once you are there.

Simply put, Skyscanner is like an online travel agent which searches hundreds of airlines and booking agencies across the world to rank the flights for you. The flights are then listed in the order of Best, Cheapest, and Fastest depending on your preference. Finding flights with Skyscanner is so easy because it stops you from checking out all the competitor’s websites one at a time, instead, seeing all the flights at a glance.

Below I will show you how to get the most out of using Skyscanner for flights. Whether you are just jumping on there for pure research, dreaming and searching for inspiration, or actually parting with cash and laying down a real booking.

Is Skyscanner Safe to Book Flights?

Skyscanner is one of my favorite tools for finding amazing deals on airfare. They use a powerful tool to search hundreds of airlines and other booking sites. You can think of it as a search tool of search tools, with a really great map feature. You can find great deals on airfare, but is Skyscanner safe to use?

Skyscanner primarily functions as a search engine for airlines and other online booking sites. Think of it as a “metasearch” site. They find you great deals and refer you to the site to book the flight. You won’t generally purchase tickets directly on the Skyscanner website.

That being said, Skyscanner is a very legit site with a good reputation. They started in 2002 as one of the most comprehensive metasearch engines for airfare. Since then, many competitors have popped up, but I still find Skyscanner to be one of the easiest and best sites to find great deals on airfare.

How to book a flight with Skyscanner

Similar to Kayak, it is possible to book through Skyscanner with certain OTAs that they have partnerships with, however, these fares only appear if they are among the cheapest options.

In most cases, you won’t actually book your flight through Skyscanner; instead, Skyscanner will refer you to an OTA or the airline that offers your chosen flight and you’ll book with them. This means that sometimes, Skyscanner’s listed fee isn’t necessarily the fee you end up with. Let’s use an $818 direct flight from Chicago to Rome as an example.

As shown before, once you click the “Select” button you’re taken to a list of OTAs that are offering this route. This $818 fare is being offered by AirfareExperts.

However, if GotoGate were the best option, you’ll find they’re not as upfront with their fees. You’ll actually pay nearly $67 for one checked bag! For a return flight, that brings up the price quite a bit.

Basically, you won’t know what the extra fees are until you go to book your flight (unless you select Premium Economy or higher at the beginning of your search). If it’s Basic Economy, the fees could add hundreds to your final bill—including fees for checked luggage, hand luggage, seat selection, and meals.

How to book a flight using the Skyscanner desktop website