One could easily list quite a few well-known sites that claim to offer the best flight search experience, and the best deals available... but this guarantee often comes at a price in the form of hidden commission costs / inflated ticket prices.  

If all you want is a flexible search facility, with no added fees/commission, and direct airline bookings I have a great solution!

Skyscanner is the perfect site for short Euro breaks, especially when you're in the mood to blindly point on a map and choose "somewhere new".  The search engine covers a vast range of airlines, including the budget options (e.g. Easyjet, Ryanair) as well as traditional carriers (such as BA, Air France, KLM).

The best feature (slightly sad as I'm an accountant, I know) is the bar graph presentation of flights across a whole month!!! You can easily identify the off-peak options and play around with different leaving and return dates! You could search for a flight from 'London (all airports)' to 'Anywhere' for the entire month of April (or whole year if you wanted).... As long as you click on the little graph icon when entering the dates, you should be fine.

Even more appealing is the fact that flight prices are constantly being refreshed to provide you with a real-time estimate of the specific airline's flight costs.  Once you've selected the flight of your choice, a link on the site will send you directly to the airline's own official website where the final purchase can be made (and insurance/baggage fee etc can be added).

There are, however, a few points to note for non-standard flight searches...  Multi city flight views are not enabled (e.g. London to Paris outbound flight, and Germany to London return route). In addition, for any of you lucky enough to consider business class seats, Skyscanner would not be able to assist you either.

The website's not limited to European flights: it also includes hotel, car hire and insurance search options. I've only ever made use of the flight search facility, but if any of you have made use of the other options please share your stories too.  I'm sure this isn't the perfect site for everyone's needs/tastes but I hope it offers some assistance in easing the pain of searching for your next flight.

Don't be fooled though... there's still the risk of choosing a cheap flight for a remote, tiny airport that's far away from the city centre! My next blog will hopefully cover this topic and give you tips on airport and hotel locations (and potential transit issues etc)

Watch this space, and HAPPY TRAVELS!