Airplane tickets have become increasingly expensive over the past 3 years and future travelers often spend a lot of time looking for the best deal for a return flight. To ease the process and hopefully save money, Google Flights just launched a new feature that provides insight on the cheapest window of time to purchase airline tickets.
1. Cheapest time to book
Since August 28, flight searches on the platform will include new information about when the lowest time to book usually occurs — based on where reliable trends data is available for that route and dates. The feature will help travelers decide if it’s better to wait, or to book that ticket immediately, Google said in a blog release.
“This feature uses several years of historical pricing data to aggregate how airfares for various route and date combinations have changed over time and identify when prices have typically been lowest, relative to the departure date,” said Google Flights’ Group Product Manager James Byers.
Pricing data from 2020 is excluded because the period was “significantly impacted” by the pandemic and “not necessarily a good indicator of what to expect going forward,” according to Byers.
2. Price guarantee
Some flights will also feature a price guarantee badge, which means Google is confident the fare won’t get any lower before departure. If it does, the tech giant will refund the difference via Google Pay — this is part of a pilot program available for select itineraries in the US. “When you book one of these flights, we’ll monitor the price every day before takeoff, and if the price does go down, we’ll pay you back the difference via Google Pay,” reads Google’s statement.
3. Avoid seasonal crowds
The new feature also allows travelers to follow or avoid the winter holiday crowds. It released the most-searched destinations on Google Flights so far this year for trips departing from December 20, 2023, to January 5, 2024, from US airports. Warm getaways and big cities dominate the top 10 spots being searched on Google Flights for the winter. They are: Cancun, Miami / Fort Lauderdale, London, New York, Tokyo, San Juan, Honolulu, Orlando, Paris and Los Angeles.
