Google Flights: The Best Way to Save Money on your Next Trip

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Google Flights
Google Flights
Google Flights

Google Flights is a flight metasearch engine that taps into the flight inventory offered by almost every airline in the world via a global distribution system. It is not an online travel agency (OTA) such as Priceline or Orbitz.

How does Google Flights work?

Google Flights is a metasearch engine tool that retrieves flight schedules, itineraries, and seats to display flight prices for hundreds of thousands of tickets – including taxes. Google Flights also collects data on additional fees to avoid basic economy and baggage fees.

When you’ve found the perfect flight, you can book it directly with the airline or through an online travel agency. Google Flights, like Google, is purely a service.

Google Flights, like Google, is purely a search tool: you are not booking flights through Google.

How to Get Started with Google Flights

This is the simple part. Begin your search for flights by going to Google Flights at https://www.google.com/flights.

There is no Google Flights app, despite the fact that there are numerous other Google apps. You can use it on a smartphone web browser, but we believe the desktop version is preferable.

The homepage is simple to use and provides instant updates based on your departure location, travel destination, dates, and other preferences.

How to find plane tickets on Google Flights

You can get the best fares for where and when you want to travel by using Google Flights to find plane tickets. Google flights can be used to:

  • Find and book one-way, round-trip, and multi-city tickets.
  • To find the best fares, use an interactive calendar and price graph.
  • You can narrow down your flight search by cabin class, airline, and number of stops.

You can book flights with Google Flights from over 300 airline and online travel agency partners. These collaborations have no bearing on the ranking of offers presented to you.

  • Locate your flights
  • Go to Google Flights.
  • Select the number of stops, cabin class, and number of tickets required at the top.
  • Choose a one-way, roundtrip, or multi-city ticket.
  • Select your departure and arrival airports. Tap Explore to see a list of popular destinations.
  • To select your flight dates, tap the calendar entry box. Each day, you’ll see the lowest total price to fly.
  • Optional:
  • Tap Stops, Airlines, Class, Times, or More to narrow your search results.
  • Best Flights (a default order that provides the best trade-off between price and convenience, based on factors such as duration, number of stops, and airport changes during layovers), Price, Duration, and Departure Time will be displayed.
  • Select a flight for each leg of your journey. The price displayed is the total cost of all flights on the ticket.

To book the flight, select one of the following options:

  • When you tap Select for your ticket(s), you’ll be directed to the airline’s or online travel agency’s website to complete the booking.
  • If the option to “Book on Google” is available, you can complete the booking transaction with an airline or online travel agency without leaving Google. If you select this option, Google will only act as an intermediary, securely transmitting your information to the airline or travel agency to complete the booking.
  • In some cases, you can purchase separate tickets for the same trip.
  • Once you’ve booked a flight, work with the airline or travel agency to confirm, change, or cancel your reservation.

If your flight cannot be booked online, you will be given instructions on how to book by phone.

Filter Google Flights Results to Meet Your Travel Needs

Sometimes any flight will suffice. After all, we all have wants and needs.

Do you want to fly first class on your honeymoon? Do you only want to leave at a specific time? Do you only want to fly with one airline? Don’t worry; Google Flights has taken these factors into account.

Understanding Google Flights Filters

Here are all of the filters available when looking for a specific flight:

1. Bags: This feature allows you to exclude many low-cost carriers and other basic economy fares. Add a carry-on bag to ensure that your Basic Economy fares on airlines that allow free carry-on bags (such as Delta or American Airlines) are still included. Other airlines, such as United and JetBlue that do not include free carry-on bags in basic economy will not appear.

This will also remove most low-cost carriers from your results, including Spirit, Frontier, Allegiant, and Sun Country.

2. Stops: You can specify how many stops you’re willing to make during your journey, or simply ensure that your results only include nonstop flights.

3. Airlines: Whether you have airline loyalty or are looking to fly on a five-star airline for the first time, you can use the Airline filter to only see flights for specific airlines or airline alliances such as SkyTeam, Star Alliance, and Oneworld.

4. Price: On a tight budget? You can easily specify the most you’re willing to pay for a flight.

5. Time: Do you need to leave early in the morning? Or do you have a deadline to meet? Use this filter to find flights with departure and arrival times that are convenient for you.

6. Airports that connect: Force Google to display only specific results based on the airports you connect through. You can also exclude flights with excessively long layovers.

7. More: You can set the maximum amount of time you’re willing to spend on a plane here, as well as whether you want to see trips booked with separate tickets (for example, fly out with one airline and return on another).

Google Flights even shows the price differences between basic economy fares (which frequently do not include free seat assignment and, in the case of United, do not include a carry-on bag), economy fares, extra legroom economy seats like Delta Comfort Plus, and occasionally even first class fares are available.

Why are some flights not included?

Google Flights displays its offers through over 300 partners, including airlines, online travel agencies, and aggregators. Because a partnership with Google is required, not all airlines or available flights are included. The majority of these partners provide Google with all of the prices and flight options that they would display on their own websites or through third-party websites. This ensures that you get a comprehensive view of the flights and prices that match your search, eliminating the need to compare prices across multiple websites.

Google travel

So it’s no surprise that the online behemoth is aiming to become an all-encompassing travel planning and booking resource through Google Travel, the most recent iteration of which debuted this month. Google Travel combines all of Google’s existing travel properties—Google Flights, Google Hotels, Google Trips, and Google Maps—into a single destination that is now available on mobile and desktop devices (it was previously only accessible on mobile).

The idea is to provide a single location to organize all aspects of your travel planning for any given trip into a single comprehensive itinerary, complete with the ability to edit and adjust various elements of the trip across devices as you go.

Begin researching flights on your smartphone while waiting in line for coffee, then continue on your desktop during your lunch break (we feel you, Google).

And if it appears that this isn’t a new venture for Google, that’s because Google Travel, with all of its moving parts, is an ongoing project with constant updates in features and usability. Google Hotels added vacation rentals to its search option earlier this year. Google Flights added a feature last year that allows users to receive push notifications when there is a predicted flight delay.

Google Flight Search

A Google Flights search provides a number of benefits for travellers, including the ability to see nearly all of the deals directly from the airline (except for Southwest) and easily compare departure times and prices. If you have a flexible travel schedule and a limited budget, there are few better options than Google Flights, thanks to a Google Flights hack that will find you the best possible deal.

Google Flight Hacks

The most effective Google Flights hack for finding cheap flights

  • Put in the city, from which you intend to depart, but no destination or departure date.
  • Click the “search” button, then the calendar, and then the “flexible dates” option.
  • Select the month you want to travel, and the map will immediately display the cheapest round-trip flights to cities other than your original departure city.
  • Click on the price to select the destinations you want to visit based on the available dates.
Google Flight Review

Google Flights (free) is one of the best websites for getting a second opinion. Google Flights is a small slice of the Google search universe that only looks at airline travel, and it has corrected some of its major limitations since its inception more than a year ago. You can now look for round-trip flights to cities all over the world, as well as one-way tickets and multi-city journeys with up to five legs.

The site still doesn’t let you book a ticket directly through Google—you have to go to another site—but it does have a nice set of tools for narrowing down your travel criteria and looking at alternatives.

Google flight allegiant – Is Allegiant available on Google Flights?

Allegiant Air was also absent for many years, but this has recently changed. Several major Asian airlines, including China Eastern, Air China, and Korean Air, are also absent from Google Flights.

Booking Flights Directly with Airlines Utilizing Google Flights

This is one of the main reasons we like Google’s flight search features: Instead of booking through another site that will handle your reservation, you can bypass the middleman and book directly with the airline.

Unlike an online travel agency or third-party search engine like Kayak, Expedia, or Priceline, Google Flights allows you to book directly with the airline. You’ll be directed to book on the airline’s website, as well as other sites that may have fares available, on the final page.

Google flight tracker – How to Use Google Flights to Find the Cheapest Days to Travel

Finding the cheapest flights is all about being adaptable. And one of Google Flights’ strengths is how simple it is to find the cheapest days to travel.

It all starts with Google Flights’ calendar view, which breaks down the cost of the flights you’re considering over the course of two months. Dates in green indicate that they are your best bet for finding cheap flights.

Google flight tracker – How to Set Price Change Alerts on Google Flights

If you’ve ever worried about the cost of a flight rising (or falling), Google Flights has you covered.

With Google Flights Price Alerts, you can keep track of changes in airfare. This is an excellent tool if you need to fly on specific dates but want to get the best deal possible.

Begin by looking for the flights you want. You can narrow it down as much as you want, down to a single preferred airline. Alternatively, leave it wide open and search for the cheapest fare possible. If you prefer, you can receive alerts only for fares that include a checked bag, or only for nonstop flight results.

Once you’ve narrowed down your preferences, simply enable price tracking by clicking the toggle button beneath the search bar.

Google flight tips

Here are some pointers on how to get the best deal on Google flights.

  • On Google Flights, use the Pricing Calendar and Date Grid to find the cheapest flights.
  • Set up fare alerts and keep an eye on price trends.
  • Rather than an airport, search by city/location (Or Multiple Airports)
  • Adding Stops to Potentially Lower Ticket Prices
  • Travel with a Preferred Airline Or Alliance
  • Try Booking Separate One-Way Tickets
  • Other Google Flights Filters
  • Find Any Type Of Accommodation (Hotels And Holiday Rentals)
  • Google Flights can help you find things to do.
  • Obtaining Vacation Destination Suggestions
What Airlines are not on Google Flights?

The power of Google Flights is that you can search for cheap flights from almost any airline.

However, not all airlines are available on Google Flights. A few airlines refuse to list their flights on Google – or any other search engine, for that matter.

Southwest does not list fares on Google Flights, so you must search its website directly.

Southwest Airlines, in particular, is not available through Google Flights. Some popular Asian carriers, such as Air China, China Eastern, and Thai Airways, are also not always available. So, if you’re looking for a cheap domestic flight, you’ll want to search Southwest’s website separately to see how its fares look. The same is true if you’re looking for Southwest flights to Hawaii, Mexico, or the Caribbean. 

How do I cancel a ticket booked through Google Flights?

There’s no need to go through Google if you need to change or cancel your tickets because you’re not booking through Google Flights.

Instead, you must contact your airline or the online travel agency through which you made your reservation. Google Flights is unable to assist you.

Pros of Google Flights

Because Google Flights is not an OTA like the others, it has some significant advantages over any other flight search engine:

  • Almost always, you can book directly with the airline. When booking flights, cutting out the middleman is more important than ever – you’d rather deal with an airline agent than shoddy customer service from a small online travel agency.
  • No other flight search engine does a better job of displaying months’ worth of flights to assist you in finding the cheapest flights possible. It will even notify you if simply shifting your travel dates by a day or two could save you money.
  • When it comes to saving money on international travel, Google Flights allows you to search from multiple airports at the same time to find the cheapest airport to depart from.

As you’ll see, you have unrivaled features and functions for filtering your search results to find the flights you want – and avoid the ones you don’t.

Cons of Google Flights

However, Google Flights is not without flaws. It’s close, but there are some disadvantages:

  • Because Google Flights primarily lists airfare directly from airlines, you may be able to find cheaper fares through OTAs that have agreements with carriers to list deeply discounted flights.
  • Although Google constantly updates its inventory of available flights, we occasionally encounter issues with out-of-date pricing. That is, you may see a price on Google Flights and then click through to see a higher price.
  • While most airlines have their fares available on Google Flights, a few do not (or other search engines).
  • Nonetheless, Google Flights is far superior to the alternatives. Google Flights should be your first port of call when looking for cheap flights. From there, you can always see if you can get a better deal on the flights you find on OTAs like Momondo or Skyscanner… and then decide whether the extra savings are worthwhile.
Frequently asked Question on Google Flights

How reliable is Google Flights?

Google Flights is a reliable, legitimate, and trustworthy flight search engine. In general, its prices are accurate and correspond to those found on airline websites and other OTAs.

How do I search Google Flights from anywhere?

Simply go to Google Flights’ homepage at google.com/flights, enter your departure airport, but leave the destination field blank. Otherwise, go to flights.google.com/explore to get it right away.

You can then refine your search by trip duration, number of stops, airlines, bags, and other factors.

Does Google Flights do multi city?

Google Flights lets you book one-way, round-trip, or multi-city tickets. How do I search multiple cities on Google Flights?

To use this feature, enter the first airport code followed by a comma, and then each subsequent airport code followed by a comma. Google Flights lets you enter up to seven departure or destination cities! After you’ve entered all of the cities you want to search from or to, press the enter key.

What airlines are not on Google flight?

Google Flights does not include all airlines.

Southwest Airlines is a notable exception in the United States, as its fares are not displayed on Google Flights. Several major Asian carriers, including Air China, China Eastern, Thai Airways, and Philippine Airlines, are also missing from the results.

Why Does Southwest Not Show Up On Google Flights?

Airlines should explain how they divert customers away from online travel agencies (OTAs) and into their own online properties. Southwest has long prohibited third-party fare websites, which is why you won’t find Southwest fares on Google Flights or Priceline.

Does Skyscanner Show All Airlines?

Skyscanner has it. When a search finds an airline deal, it sends you the best deal.

Whether you’re trying to fly one airline out and back, mix it up – or fly into and out of multiple airports at the same time.

Do Flights Go Up If You Keep Searching?

When it comes to real-time pricing, booking flights has never been easier. The “price surge” phenomenon occurs when fares are searched online.

How Do I Get Listed On Google Flights?

If you have a Google Ads team account manager, please keep in touch with them so that they can connect you. Please send the following form and include your IATA code in this section of the form so that the GFS team can contact you if you are a brand that uses the code.

How Do I Stop Airlines From Tracking My Searches?

  • Choose menu from your toolbar, which appears as three short lines on the far right side.
  • By clicking on “Settings,” you can customize your settings.
  • To view advanced settings, click the “Show advanced settings” button.
  • By selecting “Content settings” from the “Privacy” section, you will be taken to the “Privacy” section.
  • In the “Cookies” section, click “Delete cookies.”

Does Google Flights Include Southwest?

When contrasting the two types of airlines Google Flights, for example, does not include Southwest, whereas Momondo does. Google Flights may not deliver as many results as they deserve because it does not rank as well as other large airfare search engines such as Momondo, Kayak, and Skyscanner.

How Do I Search All Airlines At Once?

Search for flights on websites such as Travelocity, Expedia, and Priceline. Keep track of the airports you fly out of, as well as the dates and number of flights you’ve taken. You can gather information about flights operated by various airlines.

How Do I Find Skyscanner Flexible Dates?

You can search for flights in more than one month by clicking “Date of Travel:” at the top of the screen, below the search boxes, and then scrolling down to the desired month.

Where Is The Cheapest Place To Fly From The U.S?

The most affordable places to fly were California, Washington, Arizona, Oklahoma, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Georgia, North Carolina, Virginia, New Jersey, Connecticut, Maryland, and Vermont.

Why Do My Flight Prices Keep Going Up?

Simply put, airlines constantly adjust their airfare prices based on a variety of factors such as demand, timing, and sales. In other words, you most likely have cache data on your computer. If the price of your tickets has not been reflected in your machine for an hour or two, you may find that they are no longer valid when shopping online.

Do Flights Get Cheaper Closer To The Date?

As the departure date approaches, there is no increase in air fares. Booking flights four months to three weeks before your departure date will save you money. It is provided by CheapAir.

Conclusion

Google Flights should be your first port of call when planning your next trip.

Every day, we sift through thousands of flights, and it is without a doubt the most powerful tool for finding ridiculously low fares.

It’s far superior to any other flight search engine, with more features that will help you find the best deal every time.