Traveling can be super expensive, especially over the summer. We have been crying over the hefty airfare prices we have come across and have been seconds away from begging a friend of a friend of a friend for a buddy pass (yeah, we know--desperate!). But, then we got put up on quite possibly the most genius site ever (well, besides ours).
Skiplagged is an airline fare loop hole. The model is designed off of the idea that it's often times cheaper to buy a flight with more stops. Here is how they explain it!
Skiplagged is the only airfare search engine to not only find tickets where your destination is the final stop, but also any stop leading up to some other destination.
Why the latter? As part of the pricing model of many airlines, they would sometimes charge less for tickets where your destination is a layover rather than the final destination. This is price discrimination that has to do with being competitive in the industry. At the end of the day, what you would be doing here is purchasing more of a service than you need for less. There are some caveats though:
(1) no checked bags because they'll end up at the final destination [carry-ons are okay]
(2) must book two one-ways for round-trips
(3) shouldn't associate with frequent flyer programs
(4) there is risk of airlines removing your actual destination from your itinerary during times of irregular activity such as really bad weather
(5) you may be violating the contract of carriage for some airlines. Keep in mind that as the consumer, you have all rights to partially use the services you are paying for, so these trips are completely legal.
The savings are sometimes substantial (e.g. 80%), but it's up to you to decide whether they're worth it.
In addition to providing this transparent service, Skiplagged provides features like:
(1) seeing the cheapest destinations for almost any combination of departing airports and dates
(2) showing the prices of tickets for dates near your searched date(s)
(3) monitoring how the price for any search fluctuates every hour
(4) receiving alerts when the price of a search is near your reservation price
All of this is completely free and always will be. Some of the features may only be available on our desktop website right now, so for the full experience, check out skiplagged.com.
