Skyscanner (www.skyscanner.com) is the bible for for Alan when researching our flights, but it certainly is not without its faults, including misleading fares. Here are some tips from him to help you along the way.
Firstly, I’m sure Google flights and others are just as good but, for me, once I get to know a website, I’ll stick with it, particularly as, in this case, the content will be very similar, I imagine.
If you’ve no idea where you want to go you can search “everywhere”. It’s great to get started but the broader the search, the more inaccurate some of the information. You can search by country, but, again, don’t get too excited by the prices you see: under both these options I’ve done just that only to find the actual fare can be double or a few hundred pounds more. It can obviously be time consuming, but if you’ve got some ideas, then it may pay to explore them individually.
You can get prices for a specific date, or see how the whole month is looking. You can opt for only non stop or multi stops. You can set a window for the time of departure. I tend to always look at one way, probably because we will inevitably be returning from somewhere different. Also, as our dates are rarely set in stone we can be flexible to get the best price. It no longer seems that a return may not cost you much more than a single, in my experience.
You can also create an alert on Skyscanner on the route you are after. When the price changes you will get a notification.
The reason skyscanner works so well for us is that we are always looking for ideas and are very flexible, but even if you’ve got a fixed route and schedule it’s like a compare the market took really.
I always look at the timings of the flights and connection times as well. For example, a flight which arrives very late is a few pounds cheaper but you miss the last bus from that airport to town and you end up booking a taxi which is more expensive than a flight price difference with an earlier one. Also I recommend to pay attention to the flight connection times as you may go for a cheaper flight and end up spending a night at the transfer airport.
Once you’ve found something you like, click the “select” button. You will see different fares with different OTAs (online travel agent) and, frequently, with the airline direct. In our experience most of the OTAs are reliable but I’ve read some horror stories so be careful. Like the airlines themselves they will try and sell you numerous add-ons. As we never take any of these, apart from paying to reserve seats on a long haul flight, it doesn’t affect us. The OTA will invariably have a lower lead in fare than the airline, but charge more for any extras.
Once I’ve found the airline I will always check their website direct. If it’s a few pounds more, my advice is to book direct with the airline. I would NEVER book Ryanair, Wizzair or Easyjet through an OTA, only ever direct with them. If you have multi sector flights with different airlines, I would again book direct, and avoid the OTA.
Having said that we have saved a fair bit over the years using the OTAs. Many of them seem to be the same company with a different trading name. We have used GotoGate, Trip.com, MyTrip, BudgetAir, Lastminute with no problems. Sometimes when you click through they may increase the fare before you commence the booking. I think it was Lastminute (may have been Ebookers) who changed the price just before you go to pay. Very sneaky. Wouldn’t use them again.
Lastly, if you book through an OTA, I would always check straightaway on the airline’s “manage my booking” section that the booking is live in their system. The OTA will give you two booking references, theirs and the airline’s. Make sure you enter the airline one. Don’t leave it until you go to check in as you’ll have little time to resolve it if there’s a problem.
Please remember flights deals appear and disappear very quickly so from our experience if you find the flight you like: you are happy with the price, date and time BOOK IT 😉
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