Booking flights through SkyScanner ... how does it work? Will you get a proprietary boarding pass?

Jeremy Sproket

I had a look at flights recently with Sky Scanner and compared the prices with the airline itself, sometimes the price difference is slight, sometimes it's profound and sometimes there's no difference.

What confuses me is how can SkyScanner sell the seats cheaper than the airline itself and still make a profit? Are they bulk bought? Why does FR, EI, SpeedBird etc. allow this?

You also get the offer of various "agents" to process the ticket for you. Will you get a weird boarding pass then? If so, is there a risk the airlines may not accept it? I seem to recall recently that FR were refusing to accept third party boarding passes if memory serves.

Have you ever used Sky Scanner? Would you use it for long haul flights involving a connection?

No you shouldn't get a weird boarding pass but you could email and verify. I'm not sure about why they can sell them cheaper. it could be the profit loss is taken per ticket sold, however that's made redundant by volume sold. similar to trivago and the likes - there may be many factors!

I've used it before from Dublin to Florida, stop in Manchester.

then the return was Florida to London Heathrow and I had to travel to Gatwick. That was a pain in the ass but otherwise no issues and the price was good enough to not mind the £30 uber.

89897

You dont actually book with Skyscanner, its just a tool that shows you different offers and prices. When you click through it takes you to travel agents that you are buying the ticket of such as trip.com, e-dreams etc.

The prices you see on skyscanner are also a from price and often when you click through they are different or show the cheapest possible offer e.g. no baggage, seat selection etc. However sometimes the agent is offering deals with discounts but typically when you do end up actually buying the flights they are very similar to what the airline is offering. There are many other factors that can effect the price difference.

Your boarding pass and everything will be the very same.

endofrainbow

Skyscanner is a search engine, you don't purchase tickets from them, they direct you to sometimes dodgy 3rd party ticket floggers, sometimes to the airline.

Some are known to cobble together separate tickets therefore providing no protection in case of irrops, others might not include seat selection or baggage.