Is It Safe To Book with Skyscanner? – Review
www.skyscanner.net
Is Skyscanner a Travel Agent?
Skyscanner is an online price comparison site for booking hotels, flights and car hire. The interface of this travel portal is simple, straightforward and easy to use. The home page will greet you with the flights search feature that allows a visitor to search for flights to any destination. If you are browsing the booking website from the UK, the default departure point will the United Kingdom. In other words, the application can detect your location provided that you are not using a proxy on your browser.
Flight Search
To begin searching flights from your location to your destination, simply enter your destination either as a city, country or airport in the [To] field. If you only want direct flights, tick the small box below [Prefer directs].This option will show you all the direct flights from your current location to your destination.
The Skyscanner flight search function also allows you to choose between a one way or return flight. The choice is yours. A one way flight allows you to buy a one-way ticket, and this is the best option if you are not sure about your stay and date of return. A two way or return ticket allows you to purchase a double ticket for flying to your destination as well as the return journey. If you are certain about your date of return and have scheduled your stay in advance, then this is the best ticket to buy.
Enter your date of departure and state the number of people who are travelling with you. You will be required to state the number of people over and under 12 years, as well as those under 2 years. The economy class is the default class which also happens to be the cheapest. If you prefer a higher class, then click the drop-down box to choose from Premium Economy, Business Class and First Class.
You can also do a simultaneous search for hotels and car hire for your destination by ticking the hotels and car hire boxes. This will allow you find everything you need in one place – flight, accommodation and car hire, allowing you to book these at the same time and saving money. Click the Search button to check the results and choose your preferred flight, hotel and car rental. This is the ease with which Skyscanner allows you to find your best booking needs, all the click of a button. There is no easier way to make a booking than Skyscanner.net.
Network
Skyscanner claims to cover millions of travel routes which are catered for by over a thousand airlines across the world. The travel application will show you the cost of the cheapest airline tickets to countries within your region. You can explore more information about the routes in their travel network by clicking the appropriate category at the footer of the home page. You can explore cities, airports, airlines and regional countries.
The team at Skyscanner is aware of barriers in language across the continents, so they have done their best to address this problem by providing their online service in 20 languages including French, German, Italian Spanish, Chinese, Portuguese and Swedish. To access the travel booking website in your language, simply click the country language icon at the footer.
Just like other price comparison sites, Skyscanner.net functions as a hotel comparison, flight comparison and car rental comparison site. The site acts as a third party or facilitator for connecting travelers to the best travel booking agencies. These are travel agents, airlines or hotels which are willing to offer the best deals to customers in the competitive travel industry.
Track Bookings
It is important to know that Skyscanner doesn’t handle bookings, so they have a page dedicated to all the airlines and travel agents who use their portal. You should know the airline that you booked and if you need to contact them, go to the page on https://help.skyscanner.net/entries/21028066-Who- should-I-contact-if-I-have-a-question-about-my-booking-
Airlines that work with Skyscanner.net are listed on this page from A to Z.The objective of this flight comparison site is to help you find the lowest price. Gathering information from a dozen or hundreds of airlines and travel agencies is a tedious task to do by yourself. You have to leave it to the professionals who can network with thousands of airlines. Travel professionals do not just collect airfare prices for you to compare, but they negotiate with airlines to give you the lowest price. Travel is all about price, and this is the top priority for most travelers.
It is not clear whether Skyscanner negotiates with airlines, travel agents and hotels to bring you the lowest prices like Expedia or Priceline. It seems they are just an updated price comparison site that allows you to book the cheapest flight, and they have no control over prices charged by the airlines.
Hotel Search
It is safe to regard this travel website as a flight search engine, much similar to HotelsCombined.com.The hotel search function on Skyscanner is found on http://www.skyscanner.net/hotels.html
This page is dedicated to hotel search. Simply type in the name of your destination city, then enter the check-in and check-out dates. Enter the number of guests with you as well as the number of rooms that you desire. Click the search button.Apparently,Skyscanner aggregates data from 32 popular hotel booking sites like Expedia,Agoda,Booking.com,Hilton,GetARoom,LateRooms,Ebookers,Carlson,Choice Hotels,LastMinute and Hotel Club.
You should see a list of popular cities and you can search the popular hotels in each city. Alternatively, you can view all the hotels and cities.Skyscanner has 9 geographical sites for hotel search, including France, Germany, Russia, Norway, UK and the USA.
Car Hire
The third search function on Skyscanner.net is Car Hire. The car rental search feature is found on
http://www.skyscanner.net/car-hire
Once again it’s a simple search feature that allows you to find a car for hire at your destination city or town. You just need to name the pick-up and drop-off point. Enter the dates and time for pick-up and drop-off respectively, select your currency and country of residence, then click the Search button. Car rental rates are charged per day and you should check the special deals that are often advertised on this page.
