Among various best travel websites, Skiplagged has gained a lot of popularity, especially when finding hidden-city ticketing. There are many individuals that often make use of various strategies in order to save money on fares. This is generally accomplished through a method called “hidden-city ticketing” or “throwaway ticket”. Therefore, the use of such money-saving strategies has also earned Skiplagged an infamous reputation.
In this travel guide, we will show you how to search and book cheap flights on Skiplagged.
An Overview of Skiplagged and its Functions
Skipleagged is an airfare search engine site that lets you find the cheapest flight deals, whether you are travelling nationally or to another continent. However, in addition to offering cheap deals on flights, the site is also known for its hidden-city ticketing or throwaway tickets. Many individuals love hidden-city ticketing as this is seen as a major money saving hack when booking flights.
Hidden-city ticketing or throwaway ticket is generally useful when you book a multi-stop flight, but you don’t take the entire itinerary in order to save money. Skiplagged includes this method of booking flights into its online flight and travel search engine, which you can use to not only book cheap flights but hotels as well.
Thus, a hidden-city ticketing basically means you purchase a flight ticket with a layover, but you have no intention of flying through to the flight’s final destination. Instead, your destination city is the flight’s leg (or first leg, in case of multi-stops) and you get to save on your airfare. However, keep in mind that this practice involves the risk of having your flight cancelled if your airline carrier finds it out.
How to Find Cheap Flights on Skiplagged Site
Given below are the steps needed in order to search and book a cheap flight using Skiplagged for your travel to your desired destination city.
Choosing your Travel Options
First of all, you will need to visit Skiplagged’s website Skiplagged.com on your desktop, laptop, tablet or smartphone device.
On the site’s homepage, you will be offered two flight itinerary options i.e., round-trip or one-way.
Select your preferred flight itinerary from the top menu, and provide your departure and arrival airports and travel dates. After providing the details, click the Search Flights button.
Skiplagged will display search results with the cheapest flights at the top of the list. Now, what you need to note here is that among these cheap flights, there will also be hidden-city fares. It is not very difficult to identify hidden-city fares from the list. You can tell they are hidden-city fares where it says “skiplagged rate” on the left and the final leg of the itinerary is greyed out.
Using Filters to Narrow Down Searches
Filters are a very useful tool that can help you quickly find what you need based on your preferred options. Skiplagged provides filters, which is located on the left panel of the search results. There are a number of filters, each having its own category, in order to refine your searches.
A few filters that are available on the site are:
- Preferred airlines
- Arrival airport
- Layover cities
- Number of stops
- Take off and landing times (i.e. morning or night)
- Flight duration
- Layover duration
These filter options can help you search cheap flights that fits best for your travel.
The Hunt for Hidden-City Fares
Hidden-city fares are what most frequently flying travellers usually look for – this just saves on your airfares. However, it is not so much that you would actually want to find a hidden-city fare. It is more than you want to know when a hidden-city ticket might be cheaper than standard routing. That is more likely to be the case when the destination you want to visit is a major hub. But, if your destination is a smaller, non-hub city, then it is less likely that a route to another city would involve a layover there. This is also the case with international routes.
For example, you want to fly from San Francisco to Miami and the cost of the flight is $400. But, there is a flight from San Francisco to New York City with a layover in Miami, and the cost of that flight is only $250. Thus, you could save yourself $150 by simply booking a hidden-city ticket from San Francisco to New York City via Miami and not continuing your journey any further as soon as you arrive in Miami.
However, when using Skiplagged, you do not necessarily need to do anything extra in order to find hidden-city airfares. Such fares are already displayed in your search results, if they offer a competitive price compared to standard routing. You will know it is a hidden-city route, since the last leg of the flight’s route will be crossed off, and it will be indicated as a Skiplagged rate.
In case the cheapest flight option includes a hidden-city ticket on Skiplagged, you will need to book two separate one-way flights if you want to travel a round-trip journey. This is mainly for the reason that if you book a round-trip flight and skip the last leg of your departure flight, then the airline carrier can and will cancel your return flight.
Booking your Flight
After having found your desired flight options, it’s now time to book your flight on Skiplagged. When you are ready to book your flight, Skiplagged will automatically offer you the option for booking two separate one-way flights, which you will always need to do unless the segment of the flight’s itinerary that you plan on skipping is on the return trip. However, bear in mind that once you have skipped a leg of your itinerary, the airline will cancel all subsequent segments of the trip as well.
For instance, you are going to book a hidden-city flight to your destination city, but you will book a flight with standard routing for your return trip. Since the leg you plan to skip is on the way and before the flight’s final destination, you will be required to book two one-way flights. If it is not done so, then your return flight would be cancelled by your airline carrier once you skipped the flight leg.
As for any hidden-city flights, you will be taken directly to the airline carrier’s website to carry out the book request. Also, note that the airline’s cancellation fees will be applicable to your airfare. This is usually not the case when you book a flight through an online travel agency (OTA). However, certain fees, such as for advance seat assignment and checked baggage maynot be shown on Skiplagged site.
On the other hand, in the case of standard flights, you can book with the airline carrier or on Skiplagged as well. Skiplagged charges a service fee that starts from $8 for such flights. In addition, you can also search from your departure city to “Anywhere” to find other cheap flights that may fit your travel preference.
Conclusion
Skiplagged offers amazing deals on cheapest flights, both for domestic and international routes. But, what really makes this airfare search engine stand apart is its ability to also provide hidden-city ticketing. Although this is legal, airline carriers, however, seem annoyed by this practice, which often leads to the cancellation of your flight.
