Skyscanner Flights

The Everywhere search is Skyscanner's most distinctive feature. Instead of entering a destination, you enter only your departure airport and travel dates, then select "Everywhere" as the destination. Skyscanner returns a world map and sortable list showing the cheapest available fare to every destination it covers from your origin on those dates — ranked from cheapest to most expensive, covering hundreds of destinations worldwide.

To get the most out of Everywhere search: use it with flexible dates if possible (selecting "Whole month" instead of specific dates makes it even more powerful); filter by continent to narrow to a region you're open to; apply a maximum price filter to focus on destinations within your budget. In our testing, Everywhere search consistently revealed destinations 30–60% cheaper than our originally planned destination for the same travel window — and three of those discoveries turned into better trips than the original plan. Try the Everywhere search on Skyscanner — it costs nothing and takes under 30 seconds.

This is the most important practical limitation to understand about Skyscanner. Because Skyscanner is a search engine rather than a booking platform, all post-booking support goes through the airline or booking agent you booked with — not Skyscanner. Skyscanner's customer service team can only help with search experience issues; they cannot access, modify, or cancel your booking.

For airline direct bookings (where you clicked through to the airline's own website to book): contact the airline directly for changes or cancellations. Your rights depend on the fare class purchased and the airline's policies. For OTA bookings (where you booked through a third-party agent listed in Skyscanner results): contact the OTA directly. OTA change and cancellation policies vary significantly — this is why checking the agent's Skyscanner rating before booking is important. Highly-rated agents with 4+ stars on Skyscanner typically offer more responsive support. Our recommendation: always save the confirmation email, booking reference, and agent contact details immediately after booking, as Skyscanner cannot retrieve these for you. For travel disruption rights in the UK and EU, see Skyscanner's help centre.

In our testing, Skyscanner found the lowest published fare in 82% of searches — meaning it was cheaper than or equal to booking directly with the airline in 18 of 22 tests. Skyscanner surfaces fares from both the airline's direct channel and multiple OTAs simultaneously, so you're seeing the cheapest version of that flight from any source. Airlines generally don't offer exclusive discounts on their own websites that aren't available through Skyscanner; their direct-booking advantages are typically loyalty miles and easier post-booking service, not lower fares.

The cases where booking directly with the airline is worth it despite a potentially marginally higher fare: if you have elite status with that airline (direct booking ensures mile accrual); if flexibility is critical (direct bookings are easier to change/cancel); or if you're booking with a travel credit card that gives insurance or rewards on travel. For most travellers focused purely on finding the lowest fare, Skyscanner is the fastest path to the cheapest available ticket. Search your route on Skyscanner to verify the fare difference in real time.

Use Skyscanner if: you want the widest airline coverage (1,200+ airlines versus Google Flights' ~600), you want the Everywhere open-destination search, you want free price alerts without creating an account, or you're searching routes that include low-cost carriers that smaller search engines miss. Skyscanner is also stronger for non-UK/US routes, covering more regional carriers in Asia, the Middle East, and Africa.

Use Google Flights if: you want the fastest and cleanest interface, you're heavily invested in the Google ecosystem, or you want the price trend graph showing whether fares are likely to rise or fall — Google Flights' fare prediction feature is particularly reliable for US domestic routes. Google Flights also integrates natively with Google Calendar and Gmail trip detection. Use Kayak if: you want to search across multiple OTAs simultaneously and compare bundle prices (Kayak aggregates results from Expedia, Priceline, and others for flight + hotel packages), or you want "Hacker Fares" which combines one-way tickets from different airlines to reduce cost. For most travellers, start with Skyscanner for the broadest view, then verify on Google Flights before booking — the combination catches nearly every cheap fare that exists. See our full flight search platform comparison for detailed head-to-head test results.