The Simple Skyscanner Hack That Could Save You Money On Airplane Tickets

Is your seatbelt fastened and your tray table in the upright position? You're ready to take off on a magical mystery tour courtesy of Skyscanner. Many of us have a dream vacation destination in mind, but when it comes to finding airplane tickets to get there, we find the prices are sky-high, grounding our travel plans.

Conversely, some of us just want to visit somewhere new, and almost anywhere will do. Whether you know exactly where you want to go, or you're open to discovering new horizons, Skyscanner's "Explore everywhere" feature can save you money on your airplane ticket. Before we dig further into why you might want to use it, let's explain what it is.

To begin with, "Explore everywhere" is a free feature on Skyscanner. Simply go to the Skyscanner homepage, type your departure airport in the "From" field, and then click inside the "To" field. Before you type anything, "Explore everywhere" will pop up with a little palm tree graphic next to it. Click this, input your dates (exact dates or just the month you want to travel), and watch the destinations appear.

For adventure seekers who don't have a specific destination in mind, "Explore everywhere" is a dream tool. We searched for tickets from all New York airports for two months from the date of writing. The search result returns countries you can fly to, in order, from the lowest price upward; unsurprisingly, the cheapest destination from New York was the United States, followed by Puerto Rico and Canada. But what popped up next were some truly unexpected gems.

The beach lovers among us who want to get off the beaten track rejoiced over tickets to El Salvador for $127 round-trip and Guatemala for $153. If we wanted to throw a little more money on the pile, we could bask in the ethereal beauty of Iceland for $234 round-trip or indulge in foodie-heaven in Spain for $330. The destinations that appear when you allow Skyscanner to surprise you could provide trips to countries you never dreamed of, for prices that won't break the bank.

If you've got a destination in mind, the "Explore everywhere" tool can still come in handy. Perhaps you want to take a trip to gorgeous Switzerland but are deterred by the cost of the flights. Use "Explore everywhere" to find flights to neighboring countries, like France and Italy, and then hop across the border on a scenic train ride.

There are a ton of other ways to save money on airline tickets with Skyscanner. In the "From" field, you can input a country, city, or airport, making your search as broad or specific as you like. In a country as large as the U.S., searching for the entire country doesn't make much sense, but searching all of a city's airports does. La Guardia may yield good savings over JFK and so on. You can also put an entire country or city into the "To" field. If you know you want to fly to Italy, for example, but don't mind where you land, this could produce some bargains.

We already mentioned that you can put in specific dates or select an entire month, and this is another money-saving hack for flexible travelers. Searching for the entire month, you'll see a calendar or a bar chart showing the prices for each day. One of the major advantages of using Skyscanner is that the site searches lots of different airlines and may offer you a flight out with one airline and back with another to save you money. Finally, when you've selected a destination and dates, you can click "Get Price Alerts" to receive an email when the price of your flight changes.