Don't waste your hard-earned money. Get the best deal on your flight, hotel, or both by using Expedia.com.
- Save up to 10% bundling flight + hotel
- Millions of flight and hotel options
- Flexible dates helps you find the best days to fly
Skyscanner, Kayak, and Kiwi made our list of the best websites to book flights.
Skyscanner came out on top as the overall winner, with Kayak as the hub for cheap flights and Kiwi offering the best options for flexible and last-minute travelers.
Find out how to search and find the cheapest, fastest, and best flights on these sites with details on all the features they offer below!
What Are the Best Websites to Book Flights?
- Skyscanner is the best website to book flights overall
- Kayak is the spot for booking cheap flights
- Kiwi is ideal for flexible travelers
Skyscanner, Kayak, and Kiwi have emerged as the 3 best websites to book flights – they’re the only flight booking websites you’ll ever need to use.
Each one brings something different to the table and pulls tons of pricing data from airlines and online travel agencies all over the world.
We rated and ranked each one of these flight price aggregators according to search quality, features, pricing, and accuracy to find out how they stack up.
Below, you’ll learn what’s outstanding – or lacking – about each flight booking website and what they’re best for.
The 3 Best Websites to Book Flights
Ready to take a look at the 3 best websites to book flights?
No matter what kind of trip you’re planning or what stage of planning you’re in, you’ll find everything you need with one of these three options.
Skyscanner emerged as the overall winner, Kayak is the best website for cheap flights, and Kiwi is perfect for spontaneous and last-minute travelers.
Let’s dig into each one below to show you why they’re the best!
Best Website to Book Flights Overall: Skyscanner
Laptop computer displaying logo of Skyscanner, a metasearch engine and travel agency owned by Trip.com/monticello/Shutterstock
- Search quality: 5/5
- Features: 5/5
- Pricing: 5/5
- Accuracy: 5/5
- Total: 20/20
Skyscanner’s flight prices are typically the best you’ll find anywhere online, making this the overall best website to book flights and earning it a perfect score in our 20-point grading scale.
This is a handy flight price aggregator that takes the hassle out of booking a trip. Aside from flights, you can also book hotels, rental cars, and train tickets through Skyscanner.
Search Quality
Skyscanner’s search quality is amazing and makes the flight research process dead simple. It pulls airfare prices from cities all over the world and track pricing trends over time to show you the best rates for your flights.
Instead of spending hours researching the best or cheapest flights, pop on to set up price alerts on Skyscanner that instantly notify you when the price on a flight to a destination you’re interested in drops.
Skyscanner has excellent search features that can be tailored to your preferences with a single touch. Sort your results by cheapest, fastest, or best to order your flight results according to your priorities for the trip.
If you’re looking to get there fast without layovers and stops, sorting by “fastest” will show you the best nonstop flights or those with the shortest stops.
Features
If you need a little travel inspiration, Skyscanner has a special feature called Everywhere Search that sets it apart from other travel search engines and online travel agencies.
Spontaneous travelers can find cheap flights to different cities all over the globe just by entering their origin destination into Everywhere Search.
It’s a bit like a travel-themed Magic 8 Ball that gives you ideas for incredible trips!
And if you’re open to different departure dates, Skyscanner is a major help in nailing down the best dates for your trip.
They’ll suggest the cheapest months to fly and allow you to choose open-ended travel dates to see the biggest range of flights to your destination.
You can choose up to 6 destinations in a single search to save time and cast the widest net! If you can save $100 by flying into or from a nearby airport instead, Skyscanner will notify you.
Pricing
Skyscanner prices are often the cheapest flights you’ll find anywhere online. Frommers found that they had the lowest flight prices 13 out of 28 times in a pricing test.
That’s because they’re searching hundreds of airlines and OTAs for price drops 24 hours a day to find the lowest-possible prices for flights to cities all over.
As soon as you select your departure airport, arrival airport, and trip dates, you’ll instantly see a pricing view on the calendar showing the cheapest (green), average (orange), and most expensive (red) dates to fly.
The prices you see on Skyscanner do include expected taxes and fees, which is so helpful when you’re sticking to a strict travel budget. Generally, the price you see on SkyScanner is very likely the final price you’ll pay.
Once you choose the flight you want to book, Skyscanner directs you to the OTA or airline offering the seat(s) to pay and actually book your flight.
Accuracy
We like that Skyscanner steps aside to “remove the middleman” and prioritizes accuracy and up-to-date pricing when you’re ready to actually purchase tickets.
By sending you directly to the airline or OTA offering the flight and price you’ve selected, you’ll get the most accurate and up-to-date pricing information.
That’s key, since some flight-booking websites display old or inaccurate pricing info that leads to users buying already-sold seats or seats sold at prices the airline is no longer honoring.
Even though you’d eventually be refunded in a case like this, it can really throw a wrench into your travel plans.
We like that Skyscanner helps protect your investment by sending you directly to the airline or OTA so you can review the real-time flight price and details before you actually book.
Once you select your flight on Skyscanner to buy tickets, you can adjust your preferences for the flight to choose or upgrade your seat, add extra baggage, or purchase travel insurance for an additional cost.
Best Website to Book Cheap Flights: Kayak
Closeup of mobile phone screen with Kayak lettering logo on computer keyboard/Ralf Liebhold/Shutterstock
- Search quality: 5/5
- Features: 5/5
- Pricing: 5/5
- Accuracy: 4/5
- Total: 19/20
Kayak is one of the best websites to book flights on the cheap – nearly tied with Skyscanner in scoring.
They earned an almost-perfect score on our grading scale with 19 out of 20 possible points.
From robust searches and helpful features to access to the cheapest flight prices and accurate, updated pricing info, Kayak has it all if you’re flying on a budget.
Search Quality
Kayak’s search engine allows you to sort results by the most recommended (best) or cheapest flights, depending on your preferences and budget for the trip.
The Kayak search engine is simple to use, but it’s packed with search filter settings to narrow your results from all the flight info they pull from airlines in cities all over the world.
Sorting by best shows you Kayak’s weighted choices for the top flights to your destination, including those with the best balance between price, flight duration, stops, and more.
You can easily set up specific price alerts for your destination, dates, and preferences to automate your flight search without spending hours at the computer or checking the app.
When you run a search with your trip dates and filters applied, you’ll get results from hundreds of sources so you have the largest number of flights to choose from.
Features
When it comes to features that set it apart, Kayak’s answer to Skyscanner’s cool Everywhere Search feature is Kayak Explore.
Choose your departure airport and loose ideas of the dates you want to travel and get instant results with flight prices for destinations all over that might interest you.
They even highlight the calendar dates of the months you’re viewing with green (cheapest), tan (average), and red (most expensive) so you can adjust your travel dates on the fly to get the best price.
Kayak’s flexible dates feature lets you look at flight prices for dates outside of your selected range (up to 3 days outside of your range) so you don’t miss out on huge price drops.
Pricing
Kayak pulls up-to-date, accurate pricing and flight details from airlines and OTAs all over the globe to give you the most robust search results.
They’re the home of cheap flight prices thanks to the huge number of sites and airlines they aggregate their pricing info from.
You won’t pay any fees for using the Kayak service to find and book your flight. Kayak collects fees from the airlines and OTAs they direct users to, not the customer.
We also like that the price you see on Kayak is very close to what you’ll actually pay with taxes and fees already worked in.
Accuracy
You don’t book directly through Kayak (this is true for most flight price aggregators), but are sent directly to the airline or OTA offering the rate you’ve chosen when you’re ready to book.
This means you’re likely to get better and quicker customer service because you’ll be dealing directly with the travel organization you’re booking with instead of a third party.
The only caveat here is that Kayak’s pricing data refreshes every 24 hours, meaning you could see inaccurate pricing info (whether it’s lower or higher than what’s shown) occasionally.
We docked them 1 point in the accuracy category for this reason, but in our sample searches confirmed by checking the airline or OTA site directly, all the Kayak prices shown were accurate.
Best Website to Book Flights for Flexible Travelers: Kiwi
KIWI.com app logo on a smartphone screen. Manhattan, New York, USA May 2, 2020/NYC Russ/Shutterstock
- Search quality: 4/5
- Features: 5/5
- Pricing: 4/5
- Accuracy: 3/5
- Total: 16/20
Kiwi has been around for a decade by catering to flexible travelers that like to keep things open-ended to score the best possible flights and cheapest prices.
This is one of the best websites to book flights when you’re in the early stages of planning a trip and want to keep your options open to discover the lowest airfare to interesting destinations all over the world.
Search Quality
Kiwi’s powerful flight search engine lets you look for the best, cheapest, and fastest flights for your upcoming trip.
Searching on Kiwi is unique, since the engine is automatically set to “anytime” for departure and return dates and allows you to choose “anywhere” as a destination if you’re open to new places.
If you’re already settled on a destination and travel dates, you can choose them easily and override the default “anywhere” settings to see only the flights that fit your needs.
You can search not just flights, but also hotels, rental cars, trains, and buses with the Kiwi search engine.
Kiwi’s search filters are pretty robust, letting you select different departure and arrival airports (which are easy ways to score cheaper airfare without changing your travel dates).
Features
Kiwi has an instant pricing view feature on the flight departure/return calendar you use to search (note that Kayak also offers this view).
This makes it easy to get an idea of how much your flight might be with a quick glance before you even land on the results page.
Another cool way to use Kiwi is with the Nomad search feature. Select your departure airport, a range of dates for travel, and how long you’d like the trip to be to get started.
Kiwi will show you interesting and bucket-list destinations all over the world that match your criteria. It’s a great way to discover new, amazing places to visit if you’re not a dedicated planner.
The best part? Kiwi automatically creates an itinerary for you based on the fastest flight routes, best prices, and convenient connections.
Pricing
Kiwi shows you flight prices that are very much in line with what you’ll find on Skyscanner and Kayak, though they do show higher than average rates more often than both of these aggregators.
Once you’ve done your search and landed on the Kiwi results page, you’ll be able to see a wide range of prices that help you start narrowing down the dates and destinations for your trip.
You can view flight prices beginning as soon as tomorrow (if you left your dates set to “anytime”) or see prices for a 3-day block of time before and after your chosen dates.
This makes it easy to adjust your trip dates to get the cheapest airfare if you want to fly on a budget.
Even if you’re okay with paying average or typical airfare prices, this setting enables you to avoid paying the most expensive prices for airfare by flying outside of the busiest dates.
Accuracy
If Kiwi sounds too good to be true for flexible travelers, there is a downside worth discussing: Pricing/flight accuracy and customer service.
Kiwi tries to display up-to-date, accurate flight pricing information for different airlines and OTAs, but customers have run into issues here with flight confirmations not processing.
This can happen due to the seats being already booked when paid for if prices aren’t properly updated or flights priced differently than quoted on Kiwi.
They have a B+ rating on Better Business Bureau, but there are some customer complaints about flights being cancelled or not confirmed and refunds taking up to 3 months to be processed through the airlines (out of Kiwi’s reach).
This seems to be a rare issue, but if you’re worried about paying for your flight and discovering it’s no longer available after the fact, you’re better off going with SkyScanner or Kayak.
Don't waste your hard-earned money. Get the best deal on your flight, hotel, or both by using Expedia.com.
- Save up to 10% bundling flight + hotel
- Millions of flight and hotel options
- Flexible dates helps you find the best days to fly
Choosing the Best Websites to Book Flights
Skyscanner (20/20) and Kayak (19/20) are neck and neck in terms of features, prices, and search quality.
Kiwi, with a score of 16/20, is still one of the best websites to book flights. But it’s not as accurate or up-to-date in terms of prices shown and available flights.
Your choice for the best websites to book flights may come down to small features or differences between the top aggregators.
Skyscanner takes the cake here as the best of the best, offering robust search features, almost always showing the cheapest flight prices available, and keeping accurate prices updated on their site and app.
Kayak is the best website to book cheap flights, making it easy to toggle your search to find the lowest-priced days to fly and airports to depart or return from.
For extra features that make searching for flights simpler, Skyscanner, Kayak, and Kiwi all bring something special to the table.
The Everywhere Search, Kayak Explore, and Kiwi Nomad features are all designed to inspire your next trip. Enter your departure airport and general dates to get affordable travel ideas you may not have considered on your own.
Overall, our top 2 choices – Skyscanner and Kayak – are almost equal in terms of search, features, pricing, and accuracy. You can’t go wrong with either one.
Kiwi is a great option to consider if you’re planning a flexible trip that can easily be adjusted.
If it’s a trip that needs to be on specific dates or you can’t afford to deal with long refund processes, go with Skyscanner or Kayak instead.