Do you envision a tropical escape or historical journey? Well, the cost of travel can sometimes sabotage those dreams. What if I told you there was a way to find the best deals on flights and hotels? Enter Google Flights, a powerful tool that can be your secret weapon for affordable travel.
Google Flights is not just another flight search engine; it is an all-in-one travel planner. Here’s how it can help you turn your travel aspirations into reality:
Price tracking and fare alerts:
Imagine being able to know the perfect time to buy your plane tickets. Google Flights tracks your prices and lets you know when they go up or down, so you never have to pay too much! A recent NerdWallet study found that people who used alerts on average saved about $224 per trip!
Flexible Search: Discover Endless Options
If you don’t have a specific destination in mind, Google Flight’s “Explore” feature will become your new best friend. Simply input your desired dates and budget, then watch as an interactive map fills with pins representing different places within those parameters. This feature is great because it introduces users to new cities or countries they might not have thought of otherwise!
Compare prices across airlines and dates
Gone are the days where we had to visit each individual airline website separately just to see who had the cheapest flights. On Google Flights, they show them all at once! You may also compare different dates or even routes; this ensures that none of us leave any money on the table.
Filter for Your Preferences
Are non-stop flights your jam? Or maybe only fly with certain airlines? No problem! Simply instruct Google to display results tailored to your preferences, such as airlines, to avoid wasting time scrolling through irrelevant options.
Hidden City Ticketing (But Watch Out!)
Travel experts have long touted hidden city ticketing as one way to score cheap airfare. This involves booking a flight with a layover at your desired destination, then getting off at that point instead of continuing on to the final stop. While Google Flights won’t show you these options outright, there are ways around it—just keep thinking creatively! However, be aware that some airlines disapprove of this practice and may cancel any remaining segments if they become aware of it, so it’s important to research your options before proceeding.
Track Historical Data: Become a Price Trend Pro
Have you ever wanted to be able to predict the future? Well, thanks to websites like The Points Guy (https://thepointsguy.com/guide/use-google-flights-award-trips/), you can become masters of price trends by tracking historical flight data! This is especially helpful when it comes to knowing which times of year certain flights tend to be more expensive than others, so that we can plan accordingly.
Bonus Tip: Use Incognito Mode: Airlines and other travel sites use cookies to track your searches, which could lead to higher prices if they know you are interested in a particular route. So always make sure you’re using Google Flight incognito mode for the best results each time.
It’s important to remember that while Google Flights is an incredibly useful tool for finding deals, it can’t change everything about how airlines work or why certain routes cost what they do. However, if wielded strategically enough, then maybe—just maybe—those dreams becoming true won’t seem so far out of reach anymore.
Three More Ways Google Flights Can Help You Find a Good Deal
Google Flights has some features beyond its basic functions that could enhance the user experience during flight searches, thus resulting in better deals:
Check Price Insights
This feature not only gives you an idea of what is considered cheap or expensive but also lets you know if the current price is low, normal, or high. This way, consumers can decide whether it’s worth waiting for better conditions and whether they can find a better offer than last year.
Turn on Price Tracking
You can keep track of changes in the price by turning on price tracking for your destination and travel dates. Google Flights will send you an email if the prices go up and down frequently. If your travel dates are flexible, you can choose to be notified when there is a drop in prices on flights departing within the next 3–6 months. With this feature, you will be able to catch those great deals that may only be available for a short period of time.
Use calendar view, date grid and price graph
Google Flight equips users with various visual tools to help them see fare changes over time so that they can make informed decisions based on their needs. Calendar View and Date Grid show potential savings when one alters either their departure or return date, while Price Graph shows how flight costs vary with trip duration and departure date over time; these provide options for optimizing travel plans and finding the cheapest rates.
Advantages of Google Flights
Among all the flight search engines, Google Flights is by far the best. Let’s take a look at its main pluses:
Lightning speed
What makes Google Flights different from other flight search engines is how incredibly fast it performs searches: in seconds, it shows fares for months that no other flight search engine can do! This allows you to compare prices quickly and without much effort.
Calendar Fare Overview
Google Flights displays the cheapest fares over the next year in a clear and easy-to-understand calendar view. This is especially useful for people who can be flexible about their travel dates.
Searching multiple airports
On Google Flights, you can search up to seven starting airports and seven destination airports all at once to find out which are the cheapest flights available. This comes in handy if one lives in an area with multiple airports or is willing to explore different departure and arrival options.
Map Search
With the Google Flights Explore Map, you can take flight searching to the next level. You can, for example, select a country, region, or continent where you want to go and see which place has cheap flights from your airport during your chosen period. It is perfect for those tourists who want to travel cheaply around new locations.
Tools to help you choose
Google Flights doesn’t just offer prices; it provides much more helpful information than that. For instance, they inform us whether the displayed price is high, low, or average for that specific trip. Additionally, they provide carbon emissions data per flight so customers can make more eco-friendly choices when planning their trips.
Disadvantages of Google Flights
But as with everything else in this world, even though it has many advantages, there are some disadvantages to using Google Flight:
Doesn’t Always Have the Lowest Fares
While it searches through airfares from major airlines as well as online travel agencies (OTAs) such as Expedia and Orbitz, there might be times when Google Flights won’t display the cheapest rates available. There are smaller OTAs that could have slightly cheaper fares that don’t appear on Google Flights’ results page. However, it is important to weigh risk against savings before booking via these lesser-known sites instead of established OTAs like Orbitz or Expedia.
It does not show all airlines
One downside of using Google Flights is that it cannot show Southwest Airlines’ corresponding options. So if you want to fly with Southwest, you have to check out their fares on their website. Nevertheless, the airline has a user-friendly Low Fare Calendar feature, which makes finding the best deals easier for customers.
Displays Expired Deals
Every now and then Google Flights can show you a fare that seems available at one price but changes when you are ready to book and either goes up or is no longer available. This action known as ghosting can be very frustrating for travelers. To avoid this it’s advisable to verify fares through different dates or even other online travel agencies like Priceline or Expedia.
How to Use Google Flights
After discussing the merits and demerits of Google Flights, let’s get into the details of how one can navigate such a tool to access the best flight deals.
Setting Departure and Arrival Locations
When you begin your search with Google Flights, enter airport or city codes (separated by commas), and you will be flying from or to your preferred travel dates. You can input multiple airports in each box, which lets you look for the cheapest fares among different departure and arrival options. For instance, certain cities assign city codes to multiple airports, like NYC (New York City) or WAS (Washington, DC).
Selecting Dates to Find the Cheapest Day to Fly
Google Flight provides a calendar view that shows the minimum prices available on the days you select. When you click on the departure date box, two months with prices will pop up; green means it’s the lowest rate, while other colors indicate higher rates. Note that these green days only display the least expensive fares within their respective months. But keep in mind that moving your travel dates just a few days earlier or later may yield better rates over a several-month time frame.
Booking Flights on Google Flights
If you’re booking a round-trip fare, then click on the appropriate return flight once you’ve chosen a suitable departure flight from Google Flights. The fare displayed on Google Flights normally includes all taxes, but may not include some optional fees like seat selection or baggage charges, so it’s important to review these fare details and other additional fees before making a decision. Google Flights is not an online travel agency (OTA) but rather a flight search engine that connects you directly with airlines or other reputable OTAs.
Overcoming “Ghosting” and Expired Deals
Ghosting, as previously mentioned, occurs when a fare appears available on Google Flights at first but then becomes unavailable or increases in price when you try to book it. Try finding alternative dates on Google Flights or check other OTAs’ sites to verify if the deal doesn’t exist. However, remember that the availability of airfare fluctuates rapidly, and once a favorable rate disappears, it’s irreversible.
The best time to book flights
Booking flights is all about timing, so you should seek assistance from the Google Flights site, which provides information on the best booking windows for different types of trips. Let’s find out when to reserve air tickets under various circumstances.
Domestic Flights
Historically, 21 to 60 days ahead of a domestic flight have been the best window for US travelers to get lower prices. Usually, you can find the lowest average ticket price about 44 days before departure. However, these patterns fluctuate and can change depending on what route you’re flying, so it’s important to keep this in mind while planning your next trip during busy seasons if you want favorable rates.
Thanksgiving and Christmas Travel
Thanksgiving travel is always stressful but booking flights early will spare you some pain points. In past years, 36–74 days before your departure date was the prime booking window, with the lowest price point occurring around fifty-two days out. Meanwhile, for Christmas trips, airfare can drop as early as twenty or remain high up until eighty-eight days in advance, because that’s when we saw the cheapest average cost twenty-two days prior to a holiday journey starting.
Spring Break Getaways
The sweet spot for scoring affordable round-trip tickets falls around 41 days before takeoff, but considering that they are highly volatile and can easily change hands, it could be even earlier; hence, monitoring fare changes would come in handy because rates tend to fluctuate more than other times throughout the year. So if you’re looking at spring break dates in March or April, book sooner rather than later, especially if there’s an opportunity that costs more during those months because people have different breaks all over this period.
Summer Vacation
One should make every effort to avoid traveling two weeks prior to any major summer holiday weekend or the eve of a festive season week-long event, when many individuals may also be traveling internationally, among other factors that will lead to increased demand, thereby pushing up prices.
When it comes to how far out, should someone book their flight? The answer depends on where they are going: if leaving from outside North America, then more time would generally be necessary, while if going within North America, especially during peak seasons like summer vacation or Thanksgiving, when there is high demand for domestic flights between popular destinations, booking early may save you money.
Trips to Europe
We recommend booking as soon as possible if you are planning to travel anywhere in the US or Europe. Typically speaking, 129 days before the departure date would yield the best offers, though sometimes they can come up within a window of between 50 and 179 days prior too. These figures, however, vary depending on different European countries and cities, so make sure you also conduct extensive research on your specific location(s) of interest while tracking fares.
Trips to Mexico or the Caribbean
For trips between the U.S. and either Mexico or the Caribbean, historical data shows that there have been lower average rates from 37 to 87 days prior to takeoff. The best time is typically around the 59th day before the travel date, but like any other plan of this nature, one must closely follow prices while ensuring bookings fall within the stipulated times.
Frequently Asked Questions About Google Flights
When booking flights, can I rely on Google Flights?
Google Flights is undoubtedly a reliable flight search engine. It collects data from airlines and established online travel agents (OTAs) to provide detailed and up-to-date information. However, it solely serves as a search engine, with airlines or OTAs making the bookings.
Does Google Flights have a price guarantee?
Google Flights does not offer direct price guarantees, but you can find useful insights on prices and tracking features that could help you land great deals. You can also observe fare trends and set up fare alerts on specific routes to get affordable flights in advance.
Can I book a Southwest Airlines flight on Google Flights?
No, Google flights do not show results for Southwest Airlines, so if you want to fly with them, you must check their fees on their web page or use the Low Fare Calendar, which always gives competitive prices.
Can I search for flights with lower carbon emissions through Google Flights?
Yes, Google Flights promotes sustainable travel and offers data on carbon emissions per flight to help consumers choose more environmentally friendly flights.
Conclusion
While Google Flights is great, always compare prices with other travel websites as well as directly on airline sites themselves to make sure you are getting the absolute best deal possible.
