studentsineurope

Review: Skyscanner.net

A sample flight search on Skyscanner.net

Looking for cheap flights to your next European destination?  You might want to check out Skyscanner.net, the European-based flight search engine advertising cheap flights, low cost air travel and flight deals for all.

Skyscanner was started by three guys in Scotland who were so frustrated with the difficulty of finding cheap flights online that they started their own website to help budget-conscious people like them.  That was in 2003.  Today, the site dominates the Internet as one of the best intra-European search engines out there.

Based on the idea that no one should have to spend loads of money to travel, the website uses search engine technology to browse airlines’ websites in order to find you the best deal.  In fact, Skyscanner is comparable to Kayak.com (see my review of Kayak here), but in my experience it tends to be a better option for finding intra-European flights than its competitor because it searches more obscure European airlines than Kayak does.

One of the best things about Skyscanner is their whole month option, where you can pick a 30-day period you want to travel during and see the cheapest prices throughout the entire month.  It’s easy to use, and you can view it in either chart or calendar mode – whatever you prefer to look at.  I’ve saved a lot of money this way when I didn’t have a tight time schedule.

Another nifty feature is their suggested weekend/one week/two week break option.  Located near the bottom of the page, these buttons allow you to choose your starting country, then view a list of possible destination countries and finally, specific cities/airports.  This can save you a lot of money if you don’t exactly know where you want to go, and also is a great way to discover new destinations you may have never thought of traveling to otherwise.

One of the drawbacks of Skyscanner, like many search engine sites, is that sometimes their prices aren’t live – meaning you won’t actually be able to purchase that €50 flight displayed on the results page because it was loaded a day ago and no longer exists.  This is pretty simple to fix – you can reload the page a few times, or click below the link that says “prices from 1 day ago” (if you don’t see this anywhere, the flights are probably current) to get the most current prices.  It can be annoying at times though, so make sure to watch out for this.

Another downside is that Skyscanner doesn’t always include booking fees from websites like Easy Jet or Ryan Air.  Be careful of this and make sure to review the price thoroughly again before you buy it to avoid unexpected costs!

Despite its few disadvantages, Skyscanner is a great tool to have at your fingertips, and is an extremely helpful resource for the student traveler on a budget.  Happy flying!