How to Get Cheaper Flights By Setting Skyscanner Price Alerts
Although Skyscanner is a popular metasearch engine that helps travelers plan and book trips, did you know that you can use Skyscanner price alerts to book cheaper flights and find the best flight deals for international travel?
Skyscanner price alert monitors flight prices and immediately notifies users of any changes. As long as your price alert is active, you’ll get email notifications whenever the price goes either up or down. This feature is free and I highly recommend using it during your next flight search to help you save money on travel.
Here’s how to set Skyscanner price alerts.
Table of Contents
- Visit skyscanner.com – this for Skyscanner USA but there’s a variety of international branded sites like Skyscanner UK, Skyscanner Brasil, Skyscanner India, Skyscanner, Mexico and much more.
- In the “Flights” tab pick “round-trip” or “one-way”. Price alerts won’t work with multi-city flight searches.
- Enter your “from destination” and “to destination” (or use the “everywhere” feature), “depart” and “return date” and pick the “number of travelers”.
- Check any of the other applicable boxes such as “add nearby airports” and “non-stop flights only”.
- Click on the “Search Flights” button.
- After the search populates, press the “Get Price Alerts” button – you’ll see this on your left hand side.
- Enter your email and press the “Create Alert” button.
- Done!
If email isn’t your thing, the alternative is to get immediate push notification alerts by downloading the Skyscanner app. This way, notifications will pop up on your phone instantly.
Download the Skyscanner app here.
Also if you are no longer interested in monitoring flight prices, you can easily stop the notifications anytime.
Tips for Setting Skyscanner Price Alerts
Now that you’ve created a price alert, here are some tips for optimizing them to get the cheapest flights possible.
- Whenever you have a destination in mind, set a price alert so that you don’t miss out on any price reductions or random fare sales.
- Make sure you pick the correct airports and dates because all of the price alerts will be based on these going forward.
- If you don’t know the specific dates you want to travel, set a few price alerts for a range of dates in a particular month – it doesn’t hurt to have all of your bases covered.
- Monitor flight prices over the course of several months to build your knowledge base. Over time you’ll have a good idea of how much flights to a destination generally costs.
- Always take note of the lowest and average flight prices. As financially savvy travelers, we strive to book flights (way) below average.
- Use price alerts to figure out the most you’re willing to pay for a flight.
- Lastly, eliminate routes that become too expensive.
My Flight Price Alert Win
While searching for flights to attend a wellness retreat in Mexico City last year, I set a price alert to monitor routes from New York City to Mexico City. Since I wasn’t ready to commit to buying a ticket at the time, I set an alert to take advantage of potential deals down the road.
A few months later I received a Skyscanner email notifying me that flight price had dropped!
Without the alert, I would have never known that Volaris was having a limited-time fare sale making my flight more affordable. After getting the alert, I immediately booked discounted round-trip flights to Mexico City where I met up with friends at the SheNomads Remote Work and Wellness Retreat.
Final Thoughts
Right now, I’m using Skyscanner price alerts to monitor flights from New York City to San Juan Puerto, Rico for early July. For the past few weeks I have noticed the price fluctuation between $247 USD and $345 USD.
I’ve decided not to book yet with the hopes that prices will go back down soon.
It’s important to note that although Skyscanner simplifies flight searches by tracking flight prices; it does not predict prices which leads to the one area where I think Skyscanner can improve upon.
As my go-to for flight searches, in the future, I’d love to see Skyscanner use the data from the destination price history to predict the likeliness of the direction that prices will go in the near future. This will empower travelers to make even more informed decisions when scanning the skies.
Download the Skyscanner app and explore more helpful features like “Everywhere”.
RESOURCES
Most Efficient Way to Travel The World Cheaply
Top Budget Destinations Around the World
How I Booked $75 USD Round-trip Flight to Rome with Delta SkyMiles
This is a collaborative post with Skyscanner.
Danielle Desir Corbett paid off $63,000 of student loan debt in 4 years, bought a house at 27, and has traveled to 27 countries, including her favorites, Iceland, China, and Bermuda. Go here to learn Danielle’s incredible story, from struggling financially and in debt to finding creative ways to earn more and live on her terms. Listen to The Thought Card Podcast, where Danielle shares how you can creatively travel more and build wealth regardless of your current financial situation. Reach out to Danielle by contacting: thethoughtcard (at) gmail (dot) com.
Good tips! We have been using SkyScanner more recently, and found nice deals for our international flights. Given how expensive these flights can be depending on the seasons, whatever you can save make your travel plan more enjoyable!
Wow, I have not heard about this before I find it very helpful and useful, especially for an International trips. I like how you actually elucidate all these tips on how to catch a price alerts of skyscanner. I will surely try it one of these days or perhaps If I have plan to travel outside of my home country. Thank you so much for this.
I use skyscanner all the time. Also use the price alert feature!
Really great feature for sure. I wish I knew where I was going next and when though lol. This summer it will be last minute if I travel.
Spontaneous trips are always fun and something that I hope to do more of this year!
Thanks for the tips, I’m going to share!
I appreciate it Tam!
I haven’t used skyscanner in a while. I got so wrapped up in google flights that I forgot it existed. Right now I’m watching prices for Chicago so I’ll definitely give Skyscanner a try.
Hey Terri! I always say that it’s better to have more eyeballs monitoring my flights. It takes a few minutes to set up and it’s worth the savings! BTW I love Chicago, never visited outside of winter though.