The One Website You Need to Use Before You Book Any Holiday Travel This Year

The holidays are meant to be a time of fun, food, family, and relaxation, but obviously, they’re often extremely stressful. You have to plan get-togethers, decorate your house, shop and wrap gifts, attend parties, and make meals. On top of all that, you might also have to travel to visit loved ones.

Personally, I tend to fly home once a year around Christmastime, and every year I’m more and more shocked at how expensive it is. There are a lot of sites and apps that claim to help you find the cheapest flight possible, but they don’t always deliver on those promises. (Trust me, I looked at many this year.) However, there is one cheap flight website that stands above the rest: Skyscanner.

Put simply, Skyscanner is a website and app that analyzes all kinds of data in order to find you the cheapest flights possible. You can also use it to find hotels and rental cars. One of the most notable features offered by Skyscanner is the ability to view a flexible range of dates simultaneously for both one-way and round-trip flights. I’ve been amazed at how much flight prices can change from one day to another — especially during the holidays — and in the past I’ve spent far too long (and opened far too many browser tabs) comparing individual round-trip flights, so this is a great feature I’m honestly surprised isn’t more widely available.

Unlike services like Chase Travel or Expedia, you don’t actually book your flight on Skyscanner. Once you’ve found the best flight for you, Skyscanner will redirect you to the airline website, which is where you’ll actually confirm and pay for your flight (and get any frequent flier benefits, if applicable). 

Skyscanner is reportedly used by 100 million people, including Rachelle Janeczek, Apartment Therapy’s principal product manager. She’s been using the site since 2015 when she “studied abroad and was on a budget,” and has been a fan ever since.

Per Janeczek, this site can be a great help whether you know where and when you’re flying (for these situations, “you can set up price alerts if a fare changes”) or if you’re just browsing all the potential options out there. “I like the option to select ‘any nearby airports’ so if there’s a smaller airport near the city I’m flying to that I’m not as aware of, it handles that,” she says. 

However, her favorite Skyscanner aspect is the “Everywhere” feature. “You can select your home airport as the starting airport, and then get a full view of all destinations you can fly to in a variety of sorting order. I typically do ‘Cheapest Flights’ and scan around … let’s say I know I’ll have some free time in April but I’m pretty open to where I want to travel to. I’ll use this as a starting place to get an idea on some options, and then narrow down based on [my] interest in the destination and price.” 

So, even if you’ve already booked your holiday flight this year, this site might just inspire you to get a head start on your next vacation, too. Visit skyscanner.com.