Skyscanner-am I doing this wrong?

[PinkDaydreams]

So I keep being told by various friends and family to book flights and accommodation separately. I’ve been looking on sky scanner though and by the time I’ve added luggage to my “£35” per person flight, it’s coming to £300 for 2 adults and a one year old.
I’m confused how people travel cheaply using Skyscanner. Am I doing it wrong?!

Sky scanner is just a ‘compare the market’ for flights. It just shows you the prices to compare then choose from. The price will depend entirely on the airline. If you’re adding a hold case per person to a Ryanair flight for example that could easily bump the price up by £60pp

IMO, you can get very cheap flights if you fly at 4am or 5am on a Tuesday or Wednesday, with an airline you never heard off, from an airport just a bit too far

Gave up years ago on "cheap flights"

It’s so annoying! Each airline seems to charge different prices for luggage and also different weights too. So it looks like you’re getting a bargain flight price but not really as luggage costs approx £100!

Yep, cheap flights charge you individually for all the extras. That’s the point.

I suppose it’s good for traveling with hand luggage only. I think I’ll go back to looking at package holidays!

you have to spend a while looking and the more flexible and in advance you do things, the better the price you will get. We got a week in Spain £40 return each over May half term by being very flexible over where we went and by booking as 2 singles flying back into different airports

Was that with luggage as well?

You look at the flight via sky scanner but book direct with the airline

Skyscanner is a brilliant tool

we didn't pay for extra bags as we were going to southern Spain so knew the weather would be good. With the cabin sized bags we easily fitted everything we needed in the bags. You just wear trainers and a jacket on the way out and back, bought shampoo and conditioner out there.

@PinkDaydreams before you give up, try Kayak. You can add bags as part of the 'search' so you see how much the flight will actually cost :)

I use Skyscanner all the time. I booked last night for a long weekend to Oslo in September for £42 return.at decent times.
As others have said skyscanner is just a platform to air companies flights and is giving you a walk on price. It is great for looking at the cheapest month to go somewhere from airports near you. Eg just put your airport in and leave destinations blank a d see what it comes up with. Another thing it's good for is if you have specific dates but don't know what's available it will give you options.
You can see that if you fly out on say a Monday to a particular place the flight out will cost £157but go out on Tuesday afternoon it will be £23. So you can be creative and look for the best ime and price for you. As I said, it is a walk on price ebut if you are going for up to 10 days you should be able to manage with a cabin bag. The only time in the past 14 years I have put a case in the hold was for an Australia trip for 6 weeks but even then I packed too much!

Thank you for your advice! I’ll give kayak a try too as that tool sounds much easier.
Just looked at Ryanair and it has different packages for its luggage, but only carry on. Then get to the end and I clicked on something and up pops the option to add hold luggage......why was that option not there in the options with the carry on luggage?! I don’t want to flippin check in two carry on bags and a 10kg carry on case, I want hold luggage!! sorry for my outburst!

I’ve always booked luggage into the hold as I thought that was the only way to travel for a week with bottles of suncream etc?

Do you really need luggage?
Most people these days use cabin bags and use either cubes or compression bags.
I only use a tour operator is for complicated flights where I have a rough idea if what I want. Eg I use Dial a Flight and say I want to go to Sydney for about 4 weeks around January and I want to stop off somewhere , I dont mind if it is Singapore or Hong Kong and they look at all the options and come with a compromise of best flight with best cost.

PinkDaydreams
You can buy suncream once you have been through security at the airport or you can buy it in supermarkets in the country you are going to. Just buy a local brand for good value. Or you can pack an individual bottle of up to 100ml in to hand luggage as long as it fits into the airport sealed bag.

I’ve just looked and it worked out cheaper to add luggage into the hold rather than just carry on bags. It’s crazy! That was Ryanair though.
Thank you all so much for your help. I think traveling without booking luggage into the hole maybe a good idea as it’ll mean not having to wait for luggage with the little one once we are off the plane.

Just have a play around with it. I lose my self on those sites though!!!
I found that Kayak and skyscanner come up with the same prices but just take you to the site if what ever airline.
Remember don't keep repeatedly putting the destination in unless you clear your cookies or go incognito.
Prices for flights do go up and down.
Generally I pay more or less what I see as I only have a soft sports bag, I'm not bothered where i sit, i don't want priority boarding, I don't want any extras ( and I never buy RyanAir's raffle tickets!)
To me the flight is a means to an end!

If you have a Three mobile phone contract abd fjy on Easyjet, you can use "Hands Free" and place a 10kg bag in the hold for free. You have to pay for this on the way back though - its about £6 or £7. Otherwise, any non-Three customers can just pay each way. It's useful if you want to take more liquids. Sometimes paying for Priority boarding gets you a better hand luggage allowance than the ordinary seats.

Google Flights is a better option
www.google.com/flights/

Skyscanner uses cached data from previous searches, so can be up to 15 days out of date and also searches lots of obscure OTAs which makes it slower and which is totally unessesarry for budget flights as you only want the prices for direct booking anyway. Their price alerts are less user friendly too and when I have set identical alerts with both, the Skyscanner alert arrived over 24 hours later than the Google one, by which time the price could have gone back up again.

As for luggage, just take hand luggage only + second under seat bag or share a hold back between 2 people if you really want to take more stuff.

buttermilkwaffles
I've never had that problem with Skyscanner although I take on board what you say.
I've always had matching prices from Googleflights and Skyscanner and never has a 24 time difference on alerts between the two.

With Ryanair, you can book a 10 kg hold bag for only slightly more than the cost of taking it as cabin baggage and much cheaper than full hold baggage - it goes in the hold, so you can take full size suncream bottles.

Ryanair are usually more expensive for a 20 kg suitcase than other airlines - they'll be around £100 and say Jet2 is £50, but Ryanair are usually cheaper for flights, so it's swings and roundabouts and depends how much luggage you need.

Another option is to buy your suncream etc at Boots after security in the airport, but remember, if you're hand luggage only you can't bring it back, so only buy what you think you'll use or are prepared to leave behind. I wouldn't buy suncream abroad as it is usually much more expensive than the UK.

Be careful if looking at package holidays, as many of those charge extra for hold luggage too - the first price quoted is sometimes hand luggage only, and maybe not transfers either. It's all an add on these days, although jet2holidays packages include coach transfers and hold luggage as standard and are often well priced.

Thank you! I’m looking for a villa with its own pool, probably somewhere in the Canary Islands for November. I’ll have a look at jet2 holidays as I haven’t looked in there yet

Jet2 do villas too. We've just come back from a Jet2 holiday and the organisation and experience was excellent from start to finish.

@thefemaleJoshLyman that’s good to know thanks as I’ve been looking on their site glad you had a lovely holiday!