GOOGLE FLIGHT: FIND BEST TRAVEL DEALS

18 min readJul 26, 2021

Google flight is one of the fastest and easiest ways of booking flights at one place. It was launched in 2011 and has now part of Google Travels. This post will discuss how you can get the best travel and flight deals using Google Flight. You can find flight and travel options from various third-party companies and book them in one go.

WHAT YOU CAN DO WITH GOOGLE TRAVEL

Google travel not only allows you to find flight deals, but you can find a lot of options for your next journey. You can find the best places to visit, find and book hotels, vacation rentals, travel planning, and more. Here is what you can do on Google Travel:

Various ways of searching flights
Stops: Search flights according to your source and destination.
Bags: Sort according to the number of packs you’re carrying
Airlines: Any favorite airline in mind? Filter your search results quickly.
Price: Choose your flights according to the budget
Time: Need a flight within 4 hours? Make sure to specify the time while searching.
Duration: Not every plane flies well. Sort flights according to the travel duration
Connecting Airports: Wanna make a pit stop? Search the connecting airports.
And more!
Explore flight using Google Flights Explorer Map
Book multi-city flights
Flexible dates
Plan your vacation in Advance with Google Flight Calendar

How to use Google Travel

Follow the steps below to use Google Travel for convenient travel planning:

Visit https://www.google.com/travel/Choose any Flights, Explore, Track Prices, Create a trip, Hotel Search, and Vacation Rentals.
Follow the following sections and see how you can use each feature of Google Travel.

Moreover, you can follow a guide here and learn about this travel planner in detail.

Pro Tip: Please make sure to check the pricing with another provider before selecting travel options with Google Flights and Travels.

HOW TO FIND BEST FLIGHT DEALS USING GOOGLE FLIGHTS

Ok, so now you got the idea about Google Flights and what you can do here. We can no move further on how to find the best flight deals using Google Flights. If you know the in and out of Google Travel, you can easily find a cheaper option for you. Otherwise, you might end up paying much higher than your expectations.

It does not matter wherever you want to go; Google Flights allows you to book a flight for any part of the world. For example, you can book a flight from London to New York while having a coffee in Mumbai. Follow the steps below to get cheap fares for your next flight booking:

Open your internet browser and search for Google Flights. We recommend using Microsoft Edge and Brave browsers. Here is why!
Or you can visit https://www.google.com/flights directly from your Internet browser.
Enter the name of the source City or Airport and the destination and search for Flights. For example, you can enter New York as a source city and London as a destination to search flights from the USA to the UK.
Make sure to specify the dates. You can also search for round trips or one-way flights. As stated above, you can also search for multi-city flights. Multi-city flights allow you to book multiple flights in one go.
You can also click on any of the famous destinations right below the Google Flights search bar. Or you can click on the Explore button from the left panel.
Specify the number of passengers for which you want to book the flight tickets. You can choose from Adults, Children (2–12), Infants (in seats), or Infants (on Lap).
Then choose the flight class and select one from any of the following:
Economy
Premium Economy
Business
First Class
Now, click on the Flight Calendar to specify the dates. You know what? You can compare the fares directly on Google Flight Calendar. For example, when you search for any flight for 14th July 2021 that departs from New York and arrives in London, you can sneak a peak into the flight fares for nearby dates and choose the cheapest available. It can save you a lot of money by adjusting your departure time a bit.
After customizing your search, press Enter or click on the Search button.
On the next page, you will find various flight options to choose from. Here you can further customize the flight results by Stops, Bags, Price, Time, Connecting Airports, Duration, and more filters.
Click on the sort By button to change the search results according to your selections.
In front of a flight result, click on the down arrow to view more information about the flight. For example, you can see the connecting cities and airports and the amenities you will get on the flight.
Now click on the flight deal you like, and you will get more information about the specific flight result.
On the next page, you will get the links to various flight booking providers to book your flight. You can also compare flight fares again to get the cheapest option.
Click on the select button, and you will be redirected to the checkout page of the preferred booking partner. For example, if you click on the Select button in front of Book with FlyUS, you will be checkout to the FlyUS checkout page to complete the flight booking.
Make the payment and complete your flight booking.
Voila! You have successfully booked the cheapest flight for you.

Pro Tip: Make sure to get in touch with the airline or the booking agency (e.g., EaseMyTrip, ClearTrip, etc.) to resolve your queries about amenities, special requirements, or any other question you have in your mind.

HOW TO CANCEL A FLIGHT USING GOOGLE FLIGHT

Now you might be wondering about the procedure to cancel the flight booked through Google Flights. Please keep in mind that Google Flights is merely a flight search platform. Neither it charges you to book the flight nor book the flights directly for you. You can search for flights and redirect you to a third-party booking provider where you can book the flight of your choice.

Hence, you cannot cancel any flight booking on Google Flights. If you want to cancel any flight, you need to contact the Airline or Agency to proceed with the cancellation. As discussed in step 14 and step 15, the final booking will occur on the Airline or Agency.

HOW TO TRACK PRICES USING GOOGLE FLIGHT

As discussed earlier in this post, you can easily track flight prices for a specific route and see if the traveling is cheaper. It is a great option to save money on travel if you’re flexible with dates.

While searching for a flight on a route, enable the track prices option.
You can customize the selection by customizing the filters such as duration, trip type, number of travelers, class, etc.

Here is a detailed guide about tracking flight prices more easily and quickly.

ARE FLIGHT FARES ACCURATE ON GOOGLE FLIGHTS?

That’s a good question appearing on your mind. There is a rumor that travel agencies use cookies to raise the fares of flights you have searched in the past. However, that’s not the case with Google Flights.

Google Flights is not any travel agency or airline that is getting benefits from selling air tickets. Hence, the flight fares shown on Google Flight search results are almost accurate. Also, the flight ticket fares you see on Google Flights are inclusive of any taxes. It means that is the final fare you will see on Google Flight, and you will not have to pay any extra charges.

Please keep in mind that it might take a while to update the ticket on Google Flights when the fares change from Airline or Agency. Hence the prices are almost accurate but not entirely accurate.

OTHER IMPORTANT FEATURES OF GOOGLE FLIGHT

Ok, so you know how to book the flight and cancel any booked flight via Google Flight. But do you know you can do a lot more than just flight booking on Google Flights? Let’s take a look at what Google Flight and Google Travel can do for you and how you can take complete advantage of these features:

Recommendations

When you click on the explore button and search any city, you get the best recommendation for flights, hotels, and rentals for your next vacation. While searching for the best flight deals, you get guidance for other exciting offers that might come in handy. For example, when you search about flight options departing toward New York, you get suggestions about the best hotels, places to visit in New York, etc.

Travel History

When you click on the Travel button, you will see the history of whatever you have booked on Google Flights. You will also receive a recommendation about your potential trip. It is calculated based on your search terms on Google Flights. It is something that put Google Travel apart from any other travel agency. It looks more professional so that there is no need to track the record of your booking preferences. Google flights will handle it all.

Price Predictor

How will you find out whether you’re booking tickets at a reasonable price?

Is there any chance of fares going down?

Am I paying too much?

If any of the above questions come to your mind while searching for travel options, Google Flight is a good option for you. By using its Price Predictor, you can find out the average fares of any flight results. When you search for any flight on the search result pages, please scroll down and find where it shows a line about price. Click on the down arrow, and you can see the pricing range for a current search query.

Here you can find the minimum and maximum price of any flight and check what fare you might pay. Is not that cool? And whenever you see the ultimate ticket, try to come back later for fewer fare options.

ADVANTAGES OF GOOGLE FLIGHTS

Google Flights is really great, but it might not be the perfect solution for you. However, it’s still better than many other travel agencies and travel search engines. Here are some advantages of using Google Flights to plan your next vacation:

It’s Fast

Google Flight is fast. You can find several flight deals in milliseconds. All you need is to specify your requirements, and you will get the best options from several airlines and agencies to book your flight at the cheapest fare.

Fares for the next 11 months

When you search for any flight, you can view the fares of that route for the next 11 months (around 330 days). It means you get to choose the lowest possible price for the next 11 months. For example, if I search for a flight in June, I can view the flight fares for May next year. Not many agencies provide such a great feature.

Google Flight Calendar

If you know how to use Google Flight Calendar properly, you will not have to pay extra for any plane ticket. You can view the price of any date by simply hovering over the month. There is no need to click on the date, switch the month, and flicker to view the fare.

You know that this robust calendar can help you find the best travel deals for the next 11 months or 333 days.

There are two types of results Google Travel Calendar displays:

· Date Grid: Flight fare grid comparing prices for up to 8 days.

· Price Graph: Track flights and book in advance for up to 333 days.

Here are some more details about the best travel calendar by Google.

Map Search Explorer

Are you booking a flight from a specific city but not getting the best deal? On the other hand, a nearby town offers a better deal to book the flight to the same destination. In such a case, Map Search Explorer of Google Flights is beneficial. You can easily explore more options directly from the map and compare the fares from different sources or connecting cities.

Map search explorers or Google Flight Explore is the way that makes travel planning more accessible and exciting. As the name suggests, you can explore various travel and vacation options in a city, nearby places, or even an activity worldwide.

For case, if you want to find the best beach to visit in August, you can simply select beach as the interest, and you will have multiple cities with great beaches.

The Flight Explorer also allows you to compare prices, duration, Airlines, and more.

Here is a detailed guide explaining everything you need to know about Google Flight explore.

Please note that, like all other tools, it is also available for free of cost.

Pro Tip: Whenever you cannot decide where to go for the following holidays, or need some suggestions in your budget, visit Google Explore.

Multi-City Search

Do you know that you can take advantage of a City/State having multiple airports? All you need is to specify the Airport codes while searching for multi-city flight options. For example, if you choose 5 departure and 5 arrival airports, you will have more options.

Now here is the trick to get the best deal. While using the multi-city search options, make sure to enter the Airport codes instead of the city. That’s how you will have different fare options for a single destination.

Monitor Prices

It is a good advantage of using Google Flight. You can enable price monitoring on the flight search page. Google will send you the notification whenever the lowest fare is available for your specified destination.

DISADVANTAGES OF GOOGLE FLIGHTS

Late Update

Whenever a deal or offer from an Airline or Travel agency changes, it may take some time to update Google Flights. Hence, you might see various deals that might not be available on the actual booking website.

Miss Cheapest Fares

Google Flights usually fetches fare details from major Airlines and Travel agencies. In the process of doing so, it might exclude some small and new travel agencies. Such agencies usually have lower fares than that of large Agencies and Airlines. Hence, you might miss on the best deals while selecting Google Flights and your travel partner.

Missing Complete Information

It is the biggest drawback of using Google Flight. Google Flights is incredible and provides a user-friendly flight search and booking experience. When you click on any flight search result, it will redirect you to an external provider to complete the payment and finalize your booking. By doing so, you might miss the essential information, including terms and conditions, offer limitations, amenities, and some other details.

Google Flights sends you directly to the checkout page, and after making your payment, the flight is booked. But you might face problems if you expect something without even reading the terms and conditions. Although the interface is more effortless and plain, it is too simple to include all the essential details.

TIPS TO FIND BEST FLIGHT DEALS ONLINE

It might be possible that even after using Google flights, you are not getting good deals. As discussed earlier, Google Flights might miss on to the price offered by smaller agencies. But there is one problem: when you visit these travel agencies to book the flights, they store the cookies and raise the fare after multiple searches. Now, what can you do?

Well, here are some tips that you can follow to find the best air ticket deals online:

Change IP addresses: You can change your IP address when trying to book a flight. It could work best when you are directly booking from an Airline website or Travel agency. You can use any good VPN to change your IP address.
Use Incognito Mode: Whenever you search and book flight tickets, make sure to use the Incognito mode in your internet browser. You can switch to the incognito tab by using a shortcut combination as Ctrl+Shift+N or Ctrl+Shift+P.
Google Date Grid and Price Graph: You can also use the Data Grid and Price Graph feature in Google Flights to compare and find the best price options.
Advance Booking: Regularly try to book your flight tickets in advance and avoid last-minute pricing. It can help you save bucks.
Check Reviews: It is a good idea to check reviews for any airline and travel agency. Viewing reviews means getting help from fellow users already using the services.

WHAT MORE ON GOOGLE TRAVEL?

That was not just it! You can do a lot more on Google Flights. If you are not comfortable browsing various websites and apps for different travel options, Google Travel is for you. You can manage all your traveling and vacation activities here. For example, suppose you are searching for a flight from New Delhi to London. You will get the best flights deals, that is right! But you will also get more options to make your travel better. You can find various activities you can do in London, where to visit in London, the best hotels, and rentals in London. Isn’t that cool? Ohh, yes, it is!

What are you waiting for then? Let take a dig at other options that Google Travel is offering alongside flight options:

Things to Do

From the left panel on Google Flights or Google Travel, click on “Things to do.” It has a camera icon on this tab. When you click on it, a page will open; if you have already search flight results for a specific city, you will see options according to that. But you have not searched for anything yet. Simply Enter the city in the search box under the “Things to do” heading.

You would be surprised to see what opens next. I really love this feature of Google Travel. It technically works as a tourist guide to plan your vacation in advance. Do you have no idea about a city? Do not worry, on this page you will get all the necessary information. In this guide, I will use London as my reference city; however, you can find options for any city. Here is what you will find on the Things to do page:

A map on the right side is highlighting various famous places to visit in the city. For example, when I search for London, it shows me Buckingham Palace, London Eye, Tower of London, The National Gallery, The British Museum, and many other famous places to visit. When you click on any navigation icon on the map, it will open a small box with its description, reviews, timings, option to save it, and find more results about that place on Google search.
In the middle, a cover image with a short description followed by reasons to visit London and top sights.
You can find top sights and places of interest (i.e., local favorites, outdoors, kid-friendly, museums, Markets, Casinos, etc.).
In the next section, you will find full experiences. Now, this is what might interest you as you will know what to do in London. These are the activities that you can do to make your travel memorable and exciting.
That wasn’t all! You will also find other places and activities nearby London and some travel articles that you can follow to see more detailed information about the city you are planning to visit.

Hotels

Whenever I visit any city, the only thing that concerns me is finding a good and nice hotel to stay. It really worries me a lot about which hotel to choose, how to find the best hotel, it will be safe? I’m sure you might be wondering about such queries too. Who does not want to find a safe and friendly hotel room to stay in for a couple of days?

When you click on the Hotels button (it has the icon of a guy sleeping on a bed) on the left panel on Google Flights, you will have all the hotel options in that city. You can check their reviews, pricing, Location amenities, and other options.

Sort hotels by the pricing and rating
Filter the searches according to amenities, ratings, free cancellations, and vacation rentals
Find a hotel and know their pricing according to your travel date. Suppose you are visiting London next Sunday. Now you may not find the best price on Sunday, but if you alter your travel dates to Monday, then you might find the best hotel deals.
You will find the sponsored results (ads) on the top, so you need to scroll down to catch the organic results.

When you click on any hotel option, it will open a new tab with all the necessary details about the hotel. You can get directions, addresses, hotel websites, compare prices. You will see an alert if the prices are higher for a particular date. Click on the check availability or book on the hotel website to complete the hotel booking.

On the Hotels result page, you will see three options. These options are significant while planning your vacation:

Where to stay: When you click on where to stay, you will have the option to select the area you would be staying in during your visit. Add the range, and you will find the best options for that area.
When to visit: It is the essential feature that you should follow. When you click on this button, you will find recommendations about the best month to visit. You can see the weather forecast, pricing variation, and visitor probability.
What you’ll pay: Here, you will find different pricing ranges for different types of hotels. i.e., 2-star hotels, 3-star hotels, 4-star hotels, or 5-star hotels. You will find several hotels and the price you might have to pay.

Make sure you check these options to make your travel worthwhile.

Vacation Rentals

If you want to make your vacation really exciting, it is best to stay in a rental home instead of a hotel. That is how you learn about the local crowd, learn about their heritage and their lifestyle. When you click on Vacation Rentals on the left panel (the last option), you will find various rental options for short and long vacations.

Filter options according to number of travelers
What amenities do you want?
Number of rooms you might need (both bedroom and bathroom)
Accommodation type (apartments, houses, villas, cottages, cabins, bungalows, and more.)
View ratings and sort according to pricing.
Find markers on the map to get directions from nearby places.

PERSONAL EXPERIENCE & SUGGESTIONS

I love using Google Flights to search for airfares and compare prices without switching several websites for airlines and travel agencies. I can do it in one place. But I would love to share my personal experience with Google Flights. It could have been my best and worst experience both. Ok, so here is how it happened:

I was looking to book a flight ticket from Los Angeles to Seattle before the Pandemic started, and everything was normal. I searched for the flight and selected one with American Airlines. It was roughly a three-hour flight. I choose the flight according to the fare and my departure timing. It redirected me to aa.com (American Airlines’ official website) to complete the checkout. I had only to fill in the details and make the payment. Well, I went ahead and did the same.

I got the flight booking confirmation and other detail in my email. It was a lightning-fast booking experience as I was using Google Flights for the first time. But I did miss on to some promotion going on with AA. If I was using their official website to search for the flight, I could have known about it. However, it was not a bad experience for me. Overall, it was better as I was in a hurry to compare the flight fares. But Google Flights did that for me. Now, here are some suggestions when booking a flight next time you plan to go somewhere:

Ensure to check all the details (promotions, terms, refund policy, and other things) on the airline’s official website. In the end, they are the ones taking you from one place to another.
It would be good if you search and compare the flight fares on Google Flights, then visit the official airlines or travel agency website in a private browser window (Incognito mode) to get more information and, if possible complete the booking.
Make sure to read the reviews about flights and hotels you plan to use during your stay.
Sometimes, when you have already filled up information on an airline website, Google will auto-fill the information from your browser. Now, before checking out and making payment, check the filled information twice by yourself to avoid any inconvenience and extra charges because of that.

GOOGLE FLIGHTS ALTERNATIVES

We have discussed almost everything about Google flights so far. We discussed the advantages and disadvantages, along with a guide to finding the best prices. We also talk about various features of this exciting platform. Everything is not perfect, and yes, there are some issues that you may find with Google flight. So let us see what we have here as the alternatives to Google Flights:

Kayak

Kayak is one of the most popular travel search engines that you can use to search flights and other travel options at one go. It is an online travel agency that allows you to find so many services. Here is what you can find on Kayak:

Flight Tickets: Search for flight options and travel to any part of the world. The Flight search is almost similar to Google Flights. However, it might take some time to load the best flight deals.
Travel Deals: This is the best thing about Kayak that you can get many other travel deals. Suppose you are going to a new city for a couple of weeks and obviously you do not have much idea about the city and transportation. When you click on the deal tab from the left panel, you will get travel options that you can get while visiting a city. You can find group transportation deals to save on travel costs and other discounts necessary for your travel.
Car Rental: Apart from flights, you can search for car rental options to make your vacation more convenient and affordable. It is always a good idea to have a vehicle rather than waiting for public transports and wasting time. You will find the best car rental options from Kayak.
Trips: Planning a vacation with your family? Now it’s easier to plan your holiday more conveniently. Even if you have already booked your travel options from any third-party read more…