How to Fly Cheap Using Skyscanner Like a Pro

It was a gray Tuesday afternoon, and I found myself daydreaming about somewhere far away. With a tight budget in my pocket and a world map on my wall, I opened the Skyscanner app on my phone. Little did I know I was about to unlock a treasure trove of flight deals.

This guide follows that journey – from spontaneous getaways to meticulously planned multi-city adventures – revealing how to fly cheap using Skyscanner like a pro.

Through personal anecdotes and clever tricks, you’ll learn to harness Skyscanner’s features (like the famous “Everywhere” search, price alerts, and multi-city itineraries) along with advanced hacks like hidden-city ticketing, date flexibility, and savvy location-based comparisons. Grab your carry-on and let’s soar into the world of budget travel!

Let Your Budget Choose the Destination

I remember the first time I felt truly free in my travel planning was when I discovered Skyscanner’s “Everywhere” search feature. I was itching to go anywhere beyond my hometown, but I had no specific place in mind – just a limited budget and an open mind. Instead of typing a destination, I simply entered my departure city and set the destination to “Everywhere.”

In seconds, Skyscanner displayed a list of countries and cities sorted by price, cheapest first. Suddenly, a weekend in Mexico City or a spontaneous trip to Dublin appeared within reach for just a few hundred bucks or less. It felt like the world had flipped upside down – places I hadn’t even considered were now top of my list simply because the price was right.

How to use Skyscanner’s “Everywhere” search: This feature is perfect for the adventurous traveler who’s flexible on where to go, as long as it’s a bargain.

Here’s how you can channel your inner spontaneous wanderer:

• Enter your origin – On Skyscanner’s website or app, type in your home airport (or even an entire country for broader results) as the “From” location . For example, you can enter “United States (Any)” to search flights leaving from any U.S. airport.
• Set destination to “Everywhere” – In the “To” field, either type Everywhere or select it from the drop-down list . (Yes, it literally accepts “Everywhere” as a destination!) This tells Skyscanner you’re open to going anywhere in the world.
• Choose flexible dates – For maximum savings, click the date field and select “Whole month” or “Cheapest month” instead of fixed dates . This lets you scan an entire month (or the cheapest time of year) for the lowest fare. (We’ll dive deeper into date flexibility soon.)
• Hit search and explore – Click the search button and prepare to be amazed. Skyscanner will show a list of destinations – often grouped by country – with starting prices for flights from your chosen origin. The results are typically sorted from cheapest to priciest. Just scroll through and see what catches your eye (maybe it’s a $45 flight to Florida, or a €30 jaunt to Spain!).

Skyscanner’s “Everywhere” search on the mobile app, with New York as the origin and flexible September dates. This feature reveals a world of options by listing the cheapest destinations first (e.g. Canada, Mexico, etc.), so you can find surprise deals to places you might not have considered.

Using “Everywhere” is how I once ended up having breakfast in Brussels and dinner in Budapest on a trip that wasn’t even on my radar initially. The beauty is in the serendipity – let price guide your adventure. In practice, I simply tapped on one of the top cheap destinations shown (Skyscanner might say something like “Flights from $120” to a country or city).

The app then broke it down further: for instance, tapping Spain would show me the cheapest city in Spain I could fly into, be it Barcelona or Madrid, and on which dates that fare is available. This way, budget defines the destination – a true explorer’s approach.

Travel bloggers often hail the Everywhere search as one of the best travel hacks out there, and I wholeheartedly agree. It turns trip planning upside down: instead of asking “Where do I want to go, and can I afford it?”, you ask “Where can I afford to go, and does that excite me?”. More often than not, the answer will lead you somewhere unexpected and wonderful.

Flex Your Dates

Once you’ve opened your mind to flying anywhere, the next skill is being willing to fly whenever – or at least to be flexible with your dates. Let me share a quick story: I had my heart set on visiting my friend in Paris last year.

Initially, I looked at flights for early June (since that’s when I wanted to go) and nearly choked on my croissant – the prices were sky-high because it was peak season. Instead of giving up, I became flexible.

I pulled up Skyscanner’s whole month view for fares and noticed a huge difference: late May and mid-September were hundreds of dollars cheaper than early June for the same route. By adjusting my trip by a couple of weeks, I saved enough money to treat my friend to a fancy dinner by the Seine.

Skyscanner makes date flexibility easy with its calendar and chart views. Airfares can fluctuate day by day, and being able to see a month at a glance lets you pinpoint those sweet spots when demand (and prices) are lower.

Often, flying on a Tuesday or Wednesday, or avoiding major holidays, can dramatically cut costs. In my Paris case, a Wednesday departure and a Monday return in shoulder season were far cheaper than a Friday-to-Sunday in summer.

How to find the cheapest dates:

1. Select “Whole month” or “Cheapest month” – Instead of picking exact dates, click the date selector on Skyscanner and choose Whole month. You can either pick a specific month you’re considering, or choose Cheapest month to let Skyscanner pinpoint the time of year with the lowest fares.
2. View the fare calendar – Once you search with a flexible month, you’ll see a calendar grid (or a bar chart) showing each day’s price. Green or lower numbers indicate cheaper days, while red or higher numbers mean expensive days. If some dates show blank or “–”, it might mean no one searched that date recently (Skyscanner updates prices based on recent searches), but you can still click them to get a quote.
3. Pick departure and return dates smartly – Identify a combination of departure and return dates that yields a great price. You might find, say, leaving on the 8th and returning on the 15th is optimal. Skyscanner will often highlight the lowest price for each leg. Once you select a departure date, it will show you updated prices for return dates (making it easy to spot the best round-trip pairing).
4. Mix and match or set alerts – If you’re not ready to book, note those cheap dates or set a price alert (more on that soon). If you are ready, pounce on that fare before it disappears – deals can be fleeting!

Screenshot of Skyscanner’s Whole Month calendar view for a round-trip search. Green dates indicate the lowest fares (e.g., $260 on May 5) while red dates are pricier (e.g., $563 on May 27). By scanning the month, it’s easy to spot the cheapest departure and return combinations.

In practice, using the calendar view turned me into a savvy date-switcher. Once, I wanted to attend a concert in London but the week of the event was expensive. Using the flexible date search, I realized that flying in two days after the concert (and catching a later tour date in another city) would save me nearly $150 on airfare.

So I changed my plans – I got a cheaper flight and an extra adventure to a second city. Being flexible with dates is one of the easiest ways to save money on flights, and Skyscanner’s tools make it visual and fun. It feels like a game of “find the green (cheap) day,” and trust me, it’s a game you want to win.

As an added tip, if your schedule allows, consider flying off-peak hours too – a 5am flight or a redeye might be less popular and therefore cheaper. With a bit of caffeine and an eye mask, you’ll survive the odd hours, and your wallet will thank you.

Price Alerts and Notifications

Let’s talk about one of the most heartbreaking moments a traveler can experience: you find a great flight deal, think “I’ll book it tomorrow,” and by the next day the price has shot up beyond your budget. I’ve been there – I once hesitated on a Tokyo fare that was an absolute steal, only to return later and see it cost $200 more. Ouch.

If only I had set a Price Alert, I might have snagged that deal in time. Skyscanner’s Price Alerts are like having a little watchdog that never sleeps, keeping an eye on fares for you and barking (well, emailing) when the price drops. We all know flight prices can fluctuate daily and even hourly, so these alerts are a budget traveler’s best friend.

They turn the tables, so instead of you repeatedly checking a route, Skyscanner does the monitoring and lets you know when it’s the right time to grab your credit card.

When I missed out on Tokyo, I vowed “never again.” Now, whenever I search a route that I’m interested in but not ready to book immediately, I set a price alert.

A few weeks later, I got an email notification at 3 AM (yes, flight nerds like me keep these on) saying “Price drop for your flight from New York to Tokyo.” Groggy but excited, I clicked through and saw the fare had fallen by $180 – below my target price.

I booked it on the spot (sleep can wait when a deal’s on the line!). Without that alert, I might have missed the narrow window when the price was low. Price Alerts take the stress out of timing your purchase – you can go about your life, and Skyscanner will alert you the moment fares change on your saved routes.

How to set up a Price Alert on Skyscanner:

• Search for your desired flight – First, perform a flight search on Skyscanner for your specific route and dates (Price Alerts currently work on specific date searches, not “whole month” generic searches). You’ll get a list of flight results for your route.
• Click “Get Price Alerts” – Look at the top of the results page (on the website) or the bottom of the app screen; you’ll see a little bell icon or a button that says “Get Price Alerts.” Click it to create an alert for this trip. On the desktop site, the button is usually on the upper left side of the results page.
• Sign in to enable notifications – If you’re not already logged in, Skyscanner will prompt you to sign in or create a free account so it knows where to send the alerts. (On the app, you might get a prompt to allow push notifications.) Don’t worry – setting up alerts is free.
• Relax and watch your inbox – That’s it! You’ll start receiving notifications whenever the price changes. If the fare drops – bingo, time to book! If it starts to rise, you’ll know too, which can also inform your decision (maybe it’s time to use those saved miles if cash prices are climbing). Skyscanner’s alerts are typically emailed, and if you have the app, you might get pop-up notifications as well. You can manage or turn off alerts in your account settings once you’ve booked or if you’re no longer interested.

A peek at Skyscanner’s results page after searching flights, in this case from Chicago (ORD) to Rome (FCO). Notice the “Get Price Alerts” button (top left). By clicking it and logging in, you can receive email updates whenever the price for this ORD–FCO route changes. This way, you won’t miss out if the fare suddenly drops into your budget range.

One pro-tip I’ve learned is to set multiple alerts for multiple routes or dates if you have several possibilities in mind. For example, when planning a Europe trip, I wasn’t sure if I’d fly into Paris, London, or Amsterdam – they were all options. I set a price alert for each city from my home airport.

Over a few weeks, I observed that London’s fares dipped the most. That alert gave me the confidence to book London when it hit a new low, and I planned my itinerary around that. In fact, Skyscanner itself suggests using alerts for alternative airports and dates to maximize your chance of catching a deal.

The more nets you cast, the more likely you’ll catch the big fish (or in this case, the cheap flight)! And don’t worry about being spammed – the alerts are usually once per day at most, and you can pause or cancel them anytime.

By combining date flexibility and price alerts, you essentially hack the system: you find a cheap timeframe with the calendar, then set an alert to fine-tune the best purchase moment. The result? You’re flying at the lowest fare possible and you have the peace of mind that you didn’t miss a better deal by waiting or rushing. It’s a fine line to walk in airfare hunting, but with these tools, you’ll walk it like a pro.

More Stops, More Savings

Not all trips are as simple as there-and-back. Some of the most memorable adventures involve multiple cities – and ironically, adding a stop or two can save you money in certain cases. Meet my friend Lisa, an avid traveler who wanted to visit both London and Rome on the same trip.

Initially, she searched separate round-trip flights: New York to London, then London to New York, and another New York to Rome later. The combined cost was daunting. That’s when I showed her Skyscanner’s multi-city search tool. With multi-city, we booked New York → London → Rome → New York as one itinerary, all in one go.

To Lisa’s surprise, the total was actually lower than buying two separate round-trips – plus, it saved her the backtrack of flying home in between. We even tweaked the plan to include a 3-day stopover in Reykjavik, Iceland for free, simply by choosing a flight that routed through Iceland and using the multi-city feature to extend that layover into a mini-trip.

Skyscanner’s multi-city search allows you to join multiple flights into one booking. It’s perfect for “open-jaw” trips (where you fly into one city and out of another) or complex itineraries with several destinations. Using it feels like crafting a personalized tour: you get to decide how long to spend in each place before moving to the next.

And sometimes, due to how airline pricing works, combining legs can unlock special fares. In fact, booking a bunch of flights together can occasionally be cheaper than booking them separately, especially if airlines offer multi-city or stopover deals.

Here’s how we turned Lisa’s two-city wish into a wallet-friendly reality: On Skyscanner’s homepage, we switched the search mode from “Roundtrip” to “Multi-city.” This unlocked additional fields to add more flights. We entered NYC to London (dates in June), then clicked “Add another flight” and entered London to Rome (dates a week later), and finally added Rome back to NYC (after another week).

We also tried adding Reykjavik in between as an experiment. With up to six legs allowed in one search , the possibilities were exciting – you can crisscross continents if you want!

After inputting all the legs and hitting search, Skyscanner showed us a range of combined itineraries. We sorted by price and found a great option: it had an Icelandair flight via Reykjavik (hence the free stopover) and then a European budget airline onward to Rome, all neatly ticketed together. It was like puzzle pieces clicking into place.

Tips for using Multi-City search:

• Plan your route – List the cities you want to visit and a logical order (geographically it often makes sense to move in one direction rather than zigzag). For example, USA → Europe → Asia → USA or a loop within Europe.
• Enter legs in order – In Skyscanner, select Multi-city mode. Enter your first leg (Origin and Destination, with date), then add another flight for the next leg, and so on. You can add up to 6 legs . If you’re not sure of exact dates, try to at least choose a rough timeframe (you can always adjust if prices are high on a certain day).
• Be flexible with airports – For multi-city especially, consider nearby airports for any leg. Maybe flying out of Newark instead of JFK saves money for the first leg, or into Milan instead of Rome for that Italy leg. Skyscanner lets you search city-wide (e.g., “London (Any)” which includes all London airports) to broaden results.
• Mix & match airlines – The results might show combinations from different airlines or even alliances to complete your journey. This is normal for multi-city searches. For example, leg one could be on American Airlines, leg two on Ryanair, leg three on Delta. Skyscanner finds the best price combos available. Just keep an eye on connection times if the legs are separate airlines (a longer layover might be wise).
• Filter and compare – Use the filters (left side on web) to adjust things like number of stops or specific airlines if needed . Sometimes a slightly longer route can be much cheaper – you might be okay with a 2-stop journey if it saves a lot. Or maybe you value speed, so you filter to 1-stop options only. Play around until the itinerary and price feel right.

Skyscanner’s interface allows you to select “Multi-city” when searching for flights. In this example, a user is setting up a multi-city search (note the Delhi to Dubai route shown). You can enter up to six legs, with flexible dates (“Anytime” is selected above) and even mix different regions.

Multi-city searches help create complex itineraries in one go, often uncovering savings for round-the-world or multi-stop trips.

One of my favorite personal victories with multi-city booking was during a trip to Europe. I wanted to visit Portugal, Italy, and Greece in one vacation. Buying separate one-ways for Lisbon → Rome → Athens → home was over $1,200. Using Skyscanner, I booked New York → Lisbon → Rome → Athens → New York for around $800 total by cleverly choosing flights that tacked on each destination.

It also allowed me to take advantage of a Portugal stopover program – I got 3 days in Lisbon essentially for free on the way to Italy because the airline offered a free stopover option (a perk I wouldn’t have found if I hadn’t used multi-city to piece it all together). As travel experts note, a multi-city itinerary can let you “experience more for less” – exactly my experience.

Multi-city searches are also great for open-jaw trips: for instance, fly into San Francisco and out of Los Angeles on the way back, so you can road-trip down California in between (no need to loop back to SF for your return flight). Skyscanner will handle that in one search.

Just remember, when doing open-jaw (different return city), use the multi-city mode (one leg for inbound, another for outbound) or simply do a one-way search for each – whichever yields a better price.

And as always, compare! Sometimes a multi-city combined ticket is cheaper, other times separate one-ways with different airlines can work out if a particular budget carrier isn’t included in the multi-city results. It pays to check both approaches.

Nearby Departures and Currency Tricks

One mistake many travelers make is limiting themselves to a single departure airport or assuming the price they see is the price everywhere. Flying cheap like a pro often means thinking outside your immediate location – literally.

I learned this lesson when I was planning a trip from my small hometown airport. The flights were expensive, but then I noticed that a larger airport 100 miles away had the same destination for $200 less.

I ended up taking a $25 bus to that bigger airport and flying out from there, netting significant savings even after the bus fare. Ever since, I always consider nearby airports and even nearby cities (or countries!) when booking flights. Skyscanner helps a lot with this by offering features like “add nearby airports” and letting you search from an entire country or region.

For example, say you live in Scotland and want to fly to New York. If you search from “Edinburgh” alone, you get one set of prices. But if you search from “United Kingdom (Any)”, Skyscanner might tell you that the cheapest UK city to fly from is actually Manchester or London, sometimes by a significant margin.

You might find a Glasgow to New York flight for $500, but a Manchester to New York flight for $350. If you don’t mind a cheap train or bus ride to Manchester, you just saved $150.

The same applies on the destination side: maybe flying to a neighboring country and taking a train or a low-cost airline hop could be cheaper than flying direct to your final destination.

Skyscanner’s country-wide search is a gem for this. I once helped a friend plan a trip from England to Florida. Direct flights from London were pricey, but we searched “United Kingdom (Any) to Orlando” and saw that flying from Inverness (in Scotland) was somehow much cheaper!

It sounds counterintuitive, but perhaps an airline had a sale from that smaller airport. While Inverness wasn’t practical for her in that case, it showed that Manchester was also cheaper than London by a good amount. She happily took a train to Manchester and flew out from there, saving money.

Skyscanner search results for a country-wide departure. Here, a search from United Kingdom (Any) to New York (NYCA) with flexible dates shows the cheapest departure city. The list indicates that Manchester offers flights from £193, Inverness from £240, and London from £255 for the chosen timeframe. By selecting a country as your origin, you can easily compare which city yields the lowest fare.

As shown above, when you choose a broad origin like a whole country, Skyscanner will prompt you to “Select departure city” after the initial search. It essentially performs a comparison for you. This is incredibly useful for places like Europe where a short train ride can connect you to an airport with a better deal, or in the U.S. where a neighboring city might have a budget airline hub.

In Skyscanner’s search panel, you can also check a box for “Add nearby airports” for your origin or destination, which will include airports within a certain radius in the same search results.

For instance, if you search Los Angeles (LAX) and add nearby airports, it will also consider Orange County, Burbank, Long Beach, etc., potentially surfacing a cheaper flight from one of those.

Beyond physical location, there’s another savvy angle: virtual location, or what the travel industry calls “point of sale”. Airlines sometimes display different prices depending on the country you’re booking from or the currency you use to pay. It sounds like voodoo, but it’s a real thing – a kind of price discrimination based on market.

For example, a flight might cost $500 if booked through the U.S. version of an airline’s website, but the exact same flight might be ¥50,000 Japanese Yen (which could be, say, $450) on the airline’s Japan site.

This can happen due to currency exchange rates, regional promotions, or perceived demand. Savvy travelers exploit this by checking prices in other currencies or using VPNs to simulate booking from another country.

How can you leverage point-of-sale differences with Skyscanner? One way is to change the country/currency setting on Skyscanner. If you’re on Skyscanner’s website, scroll to the bottom and you’ll usually find a country selection (e.g., United States – USD). Try switching it to the country of the airline or a country where you suspect fares might be lower.

Skyscanner will then show prices in that currency; if you see a noticeable drop, you might save money even after converting currencies (just watch out for foreign transaction fees on your credit card).

I’ve personally saved over 15% on a Bangkok to Hong Kong flight by booking it in Thai Baht on Thai Skyscanner instead of USD on the US site. As travel experts note, this kind of currency arbitrage can let you capitalize on pricing differences airlines have across markets.

Essentially, airlines might assume a traveler in a country with a weaker currency won’t pay as much, so they price the flight lower – and if you can pay in that currency, you benefit.

Another strategy is to break your trip into separate tickets intentionally to take advantage of cheap local routes. This is somewhat related to multi-city but even more DIY. For example, I once wanted to go from Chicago to Santorini, Greece. The direct options were expensive.

So I booked Chicago to Athens (which I found on sale via Skyscanner), and separately booked a dirt-cheap Athens to Santorini flight on a Greek budget airline. The total was far less than any through ticket to Santorini.

This idea of using hubs can be generalized: maybe fly to a major gateway city near your target (where deals abound), then hop to the final destination. For someone in a small U.S. city dreaming of Asia, it might be cheaper to first get a cheap flight to Los Angeles or New York, and then take the long-haul to Asia from there, rather than one single ticket from home.

Use Skyscanner to search each segment and piece together the puzzle. Just ensure you leave ample time between separate flights in case of delays (since separate tickets aren’t protected if you miss a connection).

Finally, keep an eye out for special location-based sales. Airlines often have flash sales targeted to specific regions. Maybe Lufthansa has a sale on flights originating from France, or United discounts tickets from Canada for a week. By being flexible where you start your journey, you can take advantage of these deals.

One could even position oneself with a cheap flight to that origin. I’ve seen crazy cases like people flying from Toronto to catch a cheaper Europe flight out of New York because the savings more than paid for the positioning flight and a fun day in NYC.

In summary, don’t get tunnel vision on your nearest airport or default currency. Widen your lens – both geographically and digitally. A true pro checks multiple origin points, and isn’t above booking in euros, yen, or pesos if it means a better bargain. It’s all about playing around and comparing: Skyscanner’s global search capabilities make it easy to do just that.

Cutting Costs with Caution

Now we come to one of the most buzzed-about (and controversial) tricks in airfare saving – hidden city ticketing, also known as “skiplagging.” This technique can lead to some of the cheapest fares you’ll ever see, but it comes with caveats. Let me illustrate with a story of “Mark,” a fellow traveler I met in a hostel in Chicago.

Mark needed to fly from New York City to Chicago for a wedding, but last-minute direct tickets were around $400 – way outside his budget. Instead of giving up, he did something ingenious: he booked a flight from New York to Los Angeles with a layover in Chicago, for only $200, and simply got off the plane in Chicago, skipping the final leg to LA.

The trick here was that the NYC–LA flight, which passed through Chicago, was marketed cheaper than the non-stop NYC–Chicago flight due to airline pricing quirks. By becoming a “hidden passenger” who leaves during the layover, Mark effectively saved $200 and still arrived at his true destination (Chicago).

This is the essence of hidden city ticketing: you book a flight where your intended destination is a layover rather than the final stop. Airlines sometimes price flights to hubs (like Chicago) higher than flights through the hub to elsewhere (like LA), perhaps to capitalize on business demand on the non-stop route.

It doesn’t always make sense, but it happens more often than you’d think. There are even websites (the most famous is Skiplagged) dedicated to finding hidden-city opportunities.

Skyscanner won’t explicitly label a flight as a hidden-city deal (since it shows complete itineraries), but you might spot one by comparing prices. For example, if you notice a one-stop flight is cheaper than all non-stops and that one-stop’s layover is your target city – bingo.

Before you get too excited, though, hidden city flying requires caution and some rules-of-thumb:

• Carry-on luggage only! Do not check a bag when doing a hidden city itinerary. Why? Checked bags go to the final destination on your ticket, not your layover point. If Mark had checked a suitcase, it would’ve continued on to Los Angeles without him! He’d be in Chicago, but his bag would be in LA – not good. Even with carry-on, be careful: if the overhead bins fill up and they force-check your carry-on, that bag could also end up in the wrong city. So travel light and be among the first to board to secure bin space.
• No round-trips – Hidden city works best for one-way flights or the last leg of a round-trip. If you miss a leg of your journey (like not completing the final segment), the airline will cancel any remaining flights on that ticket. So you can’t, say, skip the second half of a round-trip and still use the return – that return will be void. Plan hidden city tricks for one-way portions, or if round-trip, only do it on the final leg home.
• Separate bookings – Similarly, don’t attach any continuing travel to a hidden-city leg. For example, if you plan to get off in Chicago but your ticket says LA, don’t have a checked-through connection from LA onward on the same booking. That’s an obvious no-go since you won’t be there to board it.
• Be prepared for surprises – Weather or operational changes can reroute flights. If your intended layover was Chicago but storms force the airline to re-route you through Dallas, your plan is busted. This is rare, but it happens. Hidden city hacking works only as long as the airline delivers you to that layover as planned. If not, you might not end up where you wanted. It’s a risk you have to accept for the saving.
• Keep a low profile – Airlines don’t like this practice. In fact, United Airlines infamously sued Skiplagged over it. While it’s not illegal for passengers (you’re not going to get arrested or anything), it is often against the airline’s contract of carriage (the fine print when you buy a ticket). If you do it frequently and blatantly, some airlines may punish you by voiding your frequent flyer miles or even banning you from their loyalty program. Casual one-time use is generally fine, but it’s wise not to brag about it at the check-in counter or on social media tagging the airline. Fly under the radar (pun intended).

Now, hearing all those cautions might make hidden city ticketing sound scary. Truth is, many travelers have done it without a hitch – you just need to know the pitfalls.

The savings can be enormous. Another example: there was an often-cited case of a flight from Atlanta to Orlando costing $250, but an Atlanta → Orlando → Dallas flight was only $130; that’s nearly half price to do the hidden city Orlando hop! (Skiplagged actually used that example to prove the concept).

For routes within Europe, I’ve seen hidden-city possibilities where a flight to a smaller city via London was cheaper than just flying to London itself. So yes, the hack works and can be your ace in the hole for expensive routes.

Using Skyscanner to find such opportunities might involve a bit of manual detective work. If you notice a cheap one-stop flight, click through and look at its details: is the layover a city you actually want to go to? If yes, check the price of a direct flight to that layover city for the same dates – if the direct flight is much more expensive, you might have found a hidden-city deal.

You can also use Skyscanner’s multi-city search in a clever way: for instance, search a multi-city like New York to Chicago on one date, and Chicago to Nowhere on a next leg just to compare pricing, but that’s more of a workaround. Usually, I find the dedicated tool Skiplagged or Google Flights exploratory searches (checking via hub airports) quicker for hunting hidden cities.

However, once I identify a possible hidden-city route, I often come back and book it through Skyscanner or directly with the airline, since Skyscanner might show a slightly better price or an OTA with a discount.

A friendly reminder: only do hidden city if you’re okay with a bit of risk and you understand you’re breaking the airline’s “rules.” It’s not something to do for every trip, but in a pinch, it can make the unaffordable trip affordable. For Mark, it meant making it to his friend’s wedding.

For you, it could be the difference that allows you to attend that far-flung reunion or catch that international music festival on a shoestring budget. Just do it wisely.

As Skyscanner’s own editorial on the topic notes, there are legal and practical downsides to consider, and they ultimately suggest finding “legitimate cheap flights” through other means (well, they would say that – they’re an airfare search engine after all!). My take: use hidden city sparingly, but keep it in your back pocket.

And if you’re intrigued by this hack but don’t want to manually scour for it, that’s where tools like Skiplagged come in – they specialize in uncovering hidden-city itineraries. You can search a city pair on Skiplagged, and it will highlight if flying beyond your destination is cheaper.

It’s worth a look if you’re really price-sensitive. Just remember, whatever you book, don’t ever inform the airline you plan to hop off mid-way. To them, you’re just a no-show for the last leg.

Conclusion

As the sun set on that gray Tuesday and I confirmed my spontaneous booking (a $60 flight to a city I’d never been before!), I realized how empowered I felt. The world suddenly seemed accessible, even on my modest budget.

By using Skyscanner in creative ways, I had cracked a code – flying cheap isn’t about luck, it’s about strategy. Let’s recap the journey we’ve taken in this article, as it mirrors the journey you’ll take in mastering these skills:

• We started with a dream and “Everywhere” – embracing the unknown destination and letting cheap fares guide us. This opened up corners of the world we hadn’t even dreamed of, simply because the price was right.
• We learned flexibility is freedom – by adjusting travel dates and using Skyscanner’s calendar insights, we beat the airlines at their own game of supply and demand, nabbing tickets when others weren’t looking.
• We set up safety nets with Price Alerts – ensuring that once we found a promising route, we wouldn’t lose it to sudden price hikes. Instead, we let technology notify us when it was deal time.
• We got inventive with multi-city itineraries – stringing together multiple adventures in one trip, and saving money by turning layovers into stopovers and single trips into multi-part explorations.
• We thought beyond borders (and airports) – realizing that a short drive, a different airport, or even paying in a different currency could translate into big savings. The cheap flight might be hiding next door or under a different flag.
• And finally, we peeked into the rebel world of hidden city ticketing – acknowledging its huge savings potential while respecting the risks and ethics involved. It’s a trick for the bold, and now you’re informed enough to decide when or if to use it.

On a closing note, remember that cheap flight hunting can be a bit of an art. Be patient and persistent. I often tell friends that finding a great fare is like surfing – you wait for the right wave, and when it comes, you ride it.

Skyscanner is your surfboard, built with powerful features that give you an edge over the ever-changing waves of airfare prices. And with the narrative tips and tricks you’ve picked up here, you’re not just riding the waves – you’re doing flips and tricks on them!

Happy travels and see you in the skies – perhaps in some far-off city that neither of us expected to be, courtesy of a great deal and a sense of adventure. Bon voyage!