I ditched Skyscanner for website with cheaper flights & £400 price-drop refunds

I LOVE finding a bargain flight – it’s how I’ve ticked off 50 countries as a travel editor, bagging dirt-cheap tickets to the hottest destinations.

But to do that, you need to shop around – and stop going straight to Skyscanner as if it’s the only flight website in town.

I’ve realised that there is an easier – and crucially far cheaper – way to book air travel… Google Flights.

The software often finds cheaper fares than the other main booking sites and can refund you up to £400 if flight prices fall before you go.

So if you’re stuck in chilly Britain and thinking of booking a sunny holiday, read this first and find out how you can save.

It’s easy enough too – simply type in “London Gatwick flights to Seville” and up they pop straight up on the search engine without having to go through the faff of looking again via a third party.

Not only do they show the cheapest fares, not leaving any airlines out like some third party websites do, but they offer a plethora of other information too.

A small symbol reveals whether hand luggage is included or not, with a line through for the latter (if you’re looking for a cheap fare, expect to see this a lot – but I have you covered on how to pack lightly here too).

It even tells you how much legroom you will get in your economy seat. So if the fares are looking similar, why not go for the one with the extra two inches?

It also makes it much easier to compare flight times, so you can see how much extra you can expect to pay without getting up at the crack of dawn.

Other extras – including whether the seats have USB outlets, in-flight entertainment and if Wifi is included or available – are all part of it too.

You can even see your flight emissions, for those who are into carbon footprints.

And while I will often sort my flights by the ‘Best’ option, you can include all kinds of limits depending on what you desperately need.

If you are going long-haul you can choose whether you want direct or indirect flights, as well as how many bags you want to take and even which airports you want to fly through.

This might not seem like a big deal, but some airports make the connections much easier. See Changi Airport and Doha Airport for the top spots (and avoid San Francisco Airport, whatever you do).

But the best little hack, if you aren’t planning on booking a flight just yet, is the “track prices” button.

Add in all of your information – primarily destination and date – and it will keep you informed when flight prices go down.

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Even without flight tracking, Google has the data to tell you if the month you are looking for is cheaper than usual or not.

For example, when looking for the London to Seville flights next month, it told me: “Prices are currently low = £39 cheaper than usual for your search.”

It will even give rough prices: “The least expensive flights for similar trips usually cost between £50 and £130.”

So you don’t have to worry about getting ripped off if you aren’t in a rush to travel.

When using Google Flights, a return flight to New York in February started from £439 – the cheapest from other booking sites was £449.

To caveat, this was when going through a holiday booking website like lastminute.com or booking.com – going direct via the airline was a similar price.

But hey, that extra tenner will come in handy for an airport breakfast.